Right-wing students were encouraged to spy on the classes of progressive professors (Henry Giroux) — Athena

I never heard of this in my many years as a prof. But it may have happened at more prestigious institutions. On the other hand there have been numerous publicized attempts by various student and faculty groups to keep conservative speakers from expressing their opinions on campus.

My argument is the Military-Industrial Complex, through educations, and the 1958 National Defense Education Act have had huge social, economic, and political ramifications — Athena

No argument there. The USAF even funded one of my minor research projects that had no military applications. The Cold War has had a profound effect on society.

You make a good point about the humanities being pushed aside after Sputnik. I'm surprised this thread is languishing. :chin:

No argument there. The USAF even funded one of my minor research projects that had no military applications. The Cold War has had a profound effect on society. — jgill

Could you please provide more information? What was that research about?

A major branch of research is public opinion and how to influence it. When I was young, I loved taking part in surveying people until I finally realized the purpose of the research was increasing the ability to manipulate them. This, also being a main part of how the Nazi party came to power and some of the best research coming from Germany before the US realized the value of it. Did your research have anything to do with the behavior of crowds?

I at odds with those who managed the cold war. Having us duck under our desk and putting our hards over heads, would not have been adequate protection in a nuclear war, so it was pointless unless the point was to cause fear and control the sheep.

The war on communist as though they could have no values that could be acceptable was a bit insane. The association of the US with God, was very powerful and I believe very much part of the problem we have today. Trump standing in front a church he has never entered and holding up a Bible as though to assure us he has God's authority, is something that should not have happened and is very much a part of the cultural conflict don't you think?

Our national destiny to spread from coast to coast is not as popular today as it once may have been, and taking this destiny to having military control of mid-east, associating it with the Power and Glory of God, following the Vietnam war division between those of us who support war and those of us who do not, heats up our cultural conflict doesn't it?

↪Athena
You make a good point about the humanities being pushed aside after Sputnik. I'm surprised this thread is languishing. :chin: — jgill

I am not surprised. My concerns are known as conspiracy theory and the belief that Eisenhower's warning should be ignored, and the lack of interest in looking into the details is powerful! It is like Trump using fear and anger and making us distrust everyone but him, just as the Nazi's did when they came to power. Those who are unaware of what is done to control the masses are in the dark and I think they want to stay there.

However, the eruption following watching a police officer gloat as he has his knee on a man's neck until the man is dead, has been as a major earthquake to our understanding of reality. I am hoping this earthquake continues to awaken our consciousness.

Could you please provide more information? What was that research about? — Athena

Infinite compositions of linear fractional transformations. Pretty much pure mathematics. :cool:

Australia recently doubled the cost of Humanities degrees, while lowering the cost for STEM subjects.

And a week later greatly increased its military budget.

The problem with your argument is the same as the problem with any "haven't things gone to pot, weren't they better in the old days" argument. Something about them good ol' days caused things to become the living hell they are now. Your lauded system of education pre-1958 can't have been that good because it produced a generation of people willing to design, implement, vote for, and otherwise allow the very system you now decry.

Your lauded system of education pre-1958 can't have been that good because it produced a generation of people willing to design, implement, vote for, and otherwise allow the very system you now decry.

What of the external stimuli that allowed such a system to be created by its constituents? Surely it wasn't merely the gilded education system of the post-war boom that pushed American society from the good old days to the living hell it is now? And your argument holds the implication that there ever was a 'good ol' days'. Most famously, Emmet Till was lynched in 1955, McCarthyism ended the year before that, and people lived in constant fear of nuclear annihilation.
I suppose the idea I'm trying to forward is that living in what our parents & grandparents most definitely saw as a hellscape caused them to want to try to create a utopian society, or at least one safe from Soviet and racial threats (those being the most obvious in my mind). And that society, which was designed to survive the Cold War, brought on its own set of issues.

That is interesting. Where can a person get more information about this?

Infinite compositions of linear fractional transformations. Pretty much pure mathematics. :cool: — jgill

It looks like that is being discussed in other threads, but how does it apply here? I am very open to explanations.

The problem with your argument is the same as the problem with any "haven't things gone to pot, weren't they better in the old days" argument. Something about them good ol' days caused things to become the living hell they are now. Your lauded system of education pre-1958 can't have been that good because it produced a generation of people willing to design, implement, vote for, and otherwise allow the very system you now decry. — Isaac

It might be better to ask questions rather than jump to conclusions. However, I will use your post to open the subject of college education today, not equally being literate.

We might be able to fault what Eisenhower called our "domestic education" for promoting inequality and a status quo of privilege that is no longer acceptable? I am not sure, and that is certainly open for discussion. But for sure that past education promoted independent thinking and literacy and a culture essential to our liberty. That is no longer true. The talk today is about college graduates not being literate and not capable of forming good arguments because of the lack of education for the Higher Order Thinking Skills. There are military and religious reasons for this.

In the past we used the Athenian model for education, promoting well rounded, individual growth and we used the Conceptual Method of education. With the focus on technology came specialization and the Behaviorist Method of education which is also used for training dogs. This change brings us to the concern of college graduates being illiterate.

The social, economic, and political ramifications are huge and this brings us to Trump, a president who ignores science, neglects to gather information, and makes decisions without much thinking. A president with Wrestlemania mentality and we can watch him in the WrestleMania ring on youtube. A president too focused on the economy, and some say his own re-election, and lacking a world few essential to our position in the world leadership. To be clear this is not about Trump, it is about the education we have had and all the people who follow him. The US adopted the German models of bureaucracy and education. Now the US is what it defended its democracy against. This is a cultural and political crisis.

for sure that past education promoted independent thinking and literacy and a culture essential to our liberty. — Athena

Obviously it didn't because the generation it produced contained and supported the instititutions responsible for the very industrialisation of education you're complaining about. How can you claim they were successfully inculcated with a "culture essential to our liberty", and in the very same argument accuse them of designing a system to train illiterate robots? Is designing a military-industrial education system something which you find to be essential to our liberty?

As well they should! After all, it is well known that English majors reading Milton leads to nothing but trouble.

What of the external stimuli that allowed such a system to be created by its constituents? Surely it wasn't merely the gilded education system of the post-war boom that pushed American society from the good old days to the living hell it is now? And your argument holds the implication that there ever was a 'good ol' days'. Most famously, Emmet Till was lynched in 1955, McCarthyism ended the year before that, and people lived in constant fear of nuclear annihilation.
I suppose the idea I'm trying to forward is that living in what our parents & grandparents most definitely saw as a hellscape caused them to want to try to create a utopian society, or at least one safe from Soviet and racial threats (those being the most obvious in my mind). And that society, which was designed to survive the Cold War, brought on its own set of issues. — deb1161

Oh my goodness my mother would sit up in her gravy and applaud you if she could. I absolutely love what you said. May I quote an old text?

"A democracy thrives upon criticism. When a free people, alert to change, studies its institutions to make them serve more richly the aspirations of the common man, it necessarily discusses the points at which improvements seem to be needed. On the public forum and in the national press interested citizens concentrate their attention upon defects in the democratic pattern to the extent that a Martian observer might draw the conclusion that, in the opinion of its followers, democracy is a failure.

What the observer does not understand is that the public critics accept the fundamental principles of democracy so completely that they do not argue about them. The purpose of public criticism is to improve the ways and means of carrying out these fundamental principles and not to destroy them."

From the "Democracy Series" a grade school level series used in the 1940's to mobilize us for war.

Today, I don't think anyone could list 8 of the democratic principles that can be found in old textbooks. I came to collecting old books about education and textbooks because when my school teacher grandmother died, I wanted to know what it meant to defend democracy in the classroom. Only when democracy is defended in the classroom is it defended, because the defense of our democracy and liberty depends on each one of us. Our military force can not defend our democracy. We have perverted our democracy exactly as the republic of Germany was perverted by the Prussian love of military might.

The first major military take over of education was in 1917 when we mobilized for the first world war. Because our national defense depended on patriotism, education for citizenship remained a priority until the military of technology of the second world war. Air warfare and the nuclear bomb made the rapid development of military technology essential, and all the businesses that had war contracts with the government very much wanted the Military-Industrial Complex. But in 1917, the world was in crisis because Germany was more technologically advanced than any other nation, and especially the US was far behind modern military technology. Today patriotism has little to do with our war capabilities because our military technology requires our money more than our sons and daughters. Compare Iraq with Vietnam. Our military force depended on young men and women in Vietnam but not so much when we invaded Iraq. The focus of modern warfare is technology and the ability to pay for it. Trump has improved things by increasing the exportation of this military technology. Is this the way to a better world?

The MIC and the NDEA is one of your abiding concerns, and it isn't altogether misplaced. However... The NDEA did have some democratizing effects by enabling people to attend college who otherwise would not have been able to afford tuition, housing, and books. My siblings were beneficiaries of NDEA grants, as were many of my fellow students. Me too. All that was back in the late 1950s and mid sixties.

Don't overlook the insidious effects of VA education benefits that sent many, many former soldiers from WWII (and later) to college.

I quite agree that the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) was. is, and probably will remain alive and well. I would like to quarrel with your chronology and widen your target aperture.

In focusing on the post WWII MIC, you are overlooking some other malignant influences: Don't forget about rampant capitalism: exploitative, often ruthless, anti-union, and focused on necessary (from their perspective) class warfare (which is what their anti-unionism is about, among other things). The manipulation of the public got a big boost in the work of Edward Bernays (1891-1955) the 'father of public relations'. Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud.

The "bigger half" of the MIC is big business, the globe-circling ouroboros, infinite tail-swallowing snake. When a handful of capitalists (literally, less than 11) hold more wealth than 1/2 of the global population, you are dealing with something pretty powerful. Not to mention there are another couple thousand inordinately wealthy individuals out there, protecting their interests.

But getting back to the NDEA: Wasn't one of the benefits of the NDEA and VA education benefits a tidal wave of students (and income) that lifted all university departmental boats? Were not the humanities and/or liberal arts departments in much better shape after WWII on into the 1970s, then they later became (put on shorter rations at best)?

Another concern you have is

With the focus on technology came specialization and the Behaviorist Method of education which is also used for training dogs. — Athena

Sure, simple conditioning works better for training dogs than having long discussions with them. I've had long discussions with my very smart dog, and I can report that it didn't improve her behavior one wit (she was, of course, a very good dog).

It happens to be the case, like it or not, that human beings, dogs, monkeys, rats, and crows share many neurological characteristics. That's why we also learn in ways not much differently than other animals. Psychology's first big (and successful) project was to understand how we learn. So it is that the methods of the rat lab became the 'image of psychology'.

In saying that, please note, I am not equating a human mind with a dog's mind. The scope of human mental activities is far vaster than a dog's, and our brains are far more complex, and utilize additional methods of learning, knowledge acquisition, imagination, and so on and so forth.

Hey, Athena: I think we share a lot of discomfort, dissatisfaction, and disagreement with the world as it has been made. My disagreement here is that there are just more villains than the Military Industrial Complex.

Obviously it didn't because the generation it produced contained and supported the institutions responsible for the very industrialisation of education you're complaining about. How can you claim they were successfully inculcated with a "culture essential to our liberty", and in the very same argument accuse them of designing a system to train illiterate robots? Is designing a military-industrial education system something which you find to be essential to our liberty? — Isaac

I remember, no matter if I was dealing with a store, a medical facility or a bureaucracy, my information was private, and I was treated as though the decisions were mine, not some assholes policy that serves the businesses we must deal with and not us. My generation is horrified by what has happened to our personal power and perhaps if this thread continues long enough there will be a better appreciation of the culture we have destroyed.

It is important to understand the change is both education and bureaucratic. We have been disenfranchised and lost so much personal power, it is hard to think of a reason to defend what we have become. We can't do anything today that is not controlled by a policy that we had no say in making. My grandmothers generation would not go along with what has happened to us. I so remember the day she walked away from a teaching job because the administration interfered with her discipline of a student.

Not that long ago, we did not marginalize people because of what is in a criminal of credit file. Our laws protected our privacy and our government could not track us through our education, banking, medical care. Only our libraries refused to open our private records to the government. This is not the democracy we defended in two world wars.

Now please, what you are speaking of when you say "designing a system to train illiterate robots". Where did you get that information? I know there is a very popular book about education that misleads our understanding of past education and I am fully ready to argue from past books that make it clear, our teachers who became teachers around the time of the first world war, fully believed they were defending democracy in the classroom and preparing each individual child for life by helping each one discover his/her our interest and talents. Since 1958 all those not going on to higher education have been cheated out of the education they need to self-actualization.

In the past, we judged people by their character and virtues, not by their technological merit.

I welcome your arguments.

My generation is horrified by what has happened to our personal power — Athena

Your generation (my generation to an extent, I'm well north of 50) raised the very people currently taking that power away. Why aren't you prepared to take any responsibility for that?

All you've done is listed a whole load of stuff wrong with current society, much of which I completely agree with, but you hark back to a time when things were 'better' in some way. My argument is something in that generation caused this state of affairs.

The people responsible for creating and maintaining the state of affairs you're lamenting were raised by the generation you're treating with reverence. They can't possibly have been that great, they raised a generation of monsters.

Sure, simple conditioning works better for training dogs than having long discussions with them. I've had long discussions with my very smart dog, and I can report that it didn't improve her behavior one wit (she was, of course, a very good dog).

It happens to be the case, like it or not, that human beings, dogs, monkeys, rats, and crows share many neurological characteristics. That's why we also learn in ways not much differently than other animals. Psychology's first big (and successful) project was to understand how we learn. So it is that the methods of the rat lab became the 'image of psychology'.

In saying that, please note, I am not equating a human mind with a dog's mind. The scope of human mental activities is far vaster than a dog's, and our brains are far more complex, and utilize additional methods of learning, knowledge acquisition, imagination, and so on and so forth.

Hey, Athena: I think we share a lot of discomfort, dissatisfaction, and disagreement with the world as it has been made. My disagreement here is that there are just more villains than the Military Industrial Complex. — Bitter Crank

I think the problem is a failure to understand the Military-Industrial Complex.

I would not be making my arguments if the first day I walked into a second-hand book store to find a book that listed the American values all children learn, I had not walked out with a copy of the 1917 National Education Association Conference and Charles Saralea's 1912 book "The Anglo-German Problem". Germans are fascinating people! While in the US our domestic education was about citizenship and culture, the German education was all about science and technology. In 1917 we added vocational training in a rush to catch up with Germany and have enough typists, engineers, and mechanics for modern warfare, but not until 1958 did we more fully adopted their model of education.

The US was basically a nation of innocent children living for a love of God. While the Prussians who took control of Germany were living for the love of military might. Can you imagine this? It is explained in several books, that verify each other.

As war came to involve everyone it became a complex organization touching every aspect of a civilization. Every aspect. Germany was the first nation to nationalized workers' compensation, health care, and a pension plan. Look at veteran's benefits in the US and perhaps think about what happened to Rome when military leaders began ruling Rome. Historically military men have taken care of their own, and Germany applied military bureaucracy to the whole of Germany. This includes all the social benefits the allies did not have! It includes Social Security and everyone having a number, a very handy thing for the state to have when it goes to war. Imagine war without numbering people and things. How important do you think those numbers were in the Civil War compared to how important they are to modern warfare. Number and document. Number and document. This is a little cultural change compared to telling "his story" in the past. Imagine history being a number, not a name.

If I write too much no one will read, so I hope I have sparked some interest that opens the way to say more in another post. The point is the Military-National Complex is about the organization of a nation, not just a separate branch of the government.

Your generation (my generation to an extent, I'm well north of 50) raised the very people currently taking that power away. Why aren't you prepared to take any responsibility for that?

All you've done is listed a whole load of stuff wrong with current society, much of which I completely agree with, but you hark back to a time when things were 'better' in some way. My argument is something in that generation caused this state of affairs.

The people responsible for creating and maintaining the state of affairs you're lamenting were raised by the generation you're treating with reverence. They can't possibly have been that great, they raised a generation of monsters. — Isaac

Excuse me, I have taken responsibility for raising consciousness ever since I realize what happened and why. That has been about 40 years. Exactly what do you think I should be doing? LOL perhaps you think I have a lot more power to change things than I do?

What have I said that you do not believe is true? And how many people do you think have the information I am providing because only a huge and united mass, with infromation, can make a difference? The Germans didn't see anything wrong until it was too late. How is any generation of Americans supposed to do better than the German's did, and where are they to find the necessary information, or why should they even know they need to look for it?

The USAF even funded one of my minor research projects that had no military applications. — jgill

↪jgill

Could you please provide more information? What was that research about? — Athena

Could you please provide more information? What was that research about? — Athena

Infinite compositions of linear fractional transformations. Pretty much pure mathematics. :cool: — jgill

It looks like that is being discussed in other threads, but how does it apply here? I am very open to explanations. — Athena

It's not part of an argument. You asked a question and I answered it. It simply illustrates the support the military gave (gives) to scientific research having no immediate military application. I don't consider that a bad thing. But, then again, I served in the military so I guess that makes me a part of the dreaded MIC.

I have taken responsibility for raising consciousness ever since I realize what happened — Athena

I don't doubt your intentions, but raising conciousness (whatever that is) is not the same as taking responsibility.

What have I said that you do not believe is true? — Athena

That's simple...

we are what we defended our democracy against. — Athena

No one else made us do this, so we obviously did not defend our democracy against anything.

that past education promoted independent thinking and literacy and a culture essential to our liberty. — Athena

This is self evidently false because if the past education promoted those things then those emerging from it would not have created the society we have today, would they?

Only when democracy is defended in the classroom is it defended — Athena

Again, self evidently false because democracy was defended in the classroom and it lead to a generation of teachers and leaders who no longer defend it in the classroom.

Since 1958 all those not going on to higher education have been cheated out of the education they need to self-actualization. — Athena

Again, self-evidently false. Pre-1958 education cannot possibly have lead to self-actualization because it produced the very people who came up with and implemented mechanical industry-serving post-1958 education.

How important do you think those numbers were in the Civil War compared to how important they are to modern warfare. — Athena

An interesting side, here: During and after the civil war, there was considerable difficulty identifying how many, from what company, from what state, and names of dead soldiers. There was no system of identification. Beginning to solve the problem of identifying soldiers (dead or alive) was a major impetus to the growth of the Federal Government. If benefits were to be paid, accurate information was needed

I think the problem is a failure to understand the Military-Industrial Complex. — Athena

Sure, because the MIC is co-extensive with the mid-20th century culture on to the present. That's an immense amount of complexity to get one's head around. Just for example, people who are dithering about the militarization of police departments are not always aware that the drive to load up your local police with tanks is coming from the Pentagon, not from your local police station.

Why are we singing the national anthem before pro-football or pro-baseball games. Because somebody in the pentagon thought that would be a good idea.

The US was basically a nation of innocent children living for a love of God. While the Prussians who took control of Germany were living for the love of military might. — Athena

Come now, Athena! The US has never been innocent. No other country has either. Let me divide this up: There are the leaders (from the Mayflower on down), there are the gung ho followers, (the core group--not too large) then there are the masses.

The English Colonies, and then the US, has pursued some highly guilt-producing practices: mass genocide conducted against the Aboriginal peoples, enslavement, wanton disregard of civil rights, ruthless exploitation, waste, fraud, abuse, and so on. The leaders and core group set the policies and the masses are roped into supporting and/or carrying out the policies.

When we talk about nations--Germany, Burma, Liechtenstein, the United States, whichever... we might want to avoid using language appropriate to morally responsible agents. Nations don't have friends; they don't have morals. They have interests, and they tend to pursue their best interests.

George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Teddy Roosevelt, Warren Harding, Dwight Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, on down to Donald Trump are, for better and for much worse, moral agents who are responsible. I'm a responsible moral agent; you're a responsible moral agent. The pentagon, as such, is not. General Motors is not. The chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (some moral agent) IS. So is the CEO, CFO, CETC. of General Motors.

I also write too much verbiage, so I'll stop here, and start again.

Just wanted to go on record, here.

I heartily loathe the military industrial, corporate business culture of not just the US, but of much of the world. It's various devious, detrimental unto diabolical designs are loathsome in their entirety. I've spent quite a bit of time since the mid 1960s thinking about the MIC.

So I am trying a new approach, the following comes out of Chris Hedges's book Empire of Illusion. — Athena

I'm a big fan of Chris Hedges. I don't share his leftist outlook but I do appreciate his analysis of the warfare state and how it functions. I've noticed that while the US comes apart on domestic issues, there's broad bipartisan support on our awful foreign policy. Congress just decided last week to keep troops in Afghanistan past the election. We've only been at war there for 19 years. We're still in Iraq too. When does this insanity end?

To someone like me who cares about foreign policy, it's almost as if the domestic chaos is a smokescreen to take the public's mind off the wars, which continue unabated.

Nah, it must just be a coincidence. Pay no attention to the wars.

We do live in Ike's prediction.

I certainly didn't mean to put you on the defensive but I have the curiosity and sense of wonder of a child.

I don't think I want to be judgmental about the good or bad of military research, but was looking for denial or confirmation of what I am reading in books about the military and industrial take over of higher education. This is about cultural change, right?

A democracy needs people to be generalists so we have some idea of the meaning of things we vote on besides our own personal interest. When we are generalists we can all talk about the issues and work together to reason through things. According to the books, specialists tend to have their own jargon and that leads to others not understanding what they are talking about. Specialization goes with ideas of superiority and inferiority and this can become very unfriendly. I think when we specialize, we develop social and political problems?

I don't doubt your intentions, but raising conciousness (whatever that is) is not the same as taking responsibility.

What have I said that you do not believe is true? — Athena


That's simple...

we are what we defended our democracy against. — Athena


No one else made us do this, so we obviously did not defend our democracy against anything.

that past education promoted independent thinking and literacy and a culture essential to our liberty. — Athena


This is self evidently false because if the past education promoted those things then those emerging from it would not have created the society we have today, would they?

Only when democracy is defended in the classroom is it defended — Athena


Again, self evidently false because democracy was defended in the classroom and it lead to a generation of teachers and leaders who no longer defend it in the classroom.

Since 1958 all those not going on to higher education have been cheated out of the education they need to self-actualization. — Athena


Again, self-evidently false. Pre-1958 education cannot possibly have lead to self-actualization because it produced the very people who came up with and implemented mechanical industry-serving post-1958 education.
21 hours ago
Reply
Options — Isaac

Ah did you get when we entered the first and second world wars, we most certainly did defend our democracy in the classroom and we stopped doing this in 1958 when the National Defense Education Act was passed? I know this because I buy the old books about education and the textbooks. The reason for this change is in the past our national defense depended much more on patriotism than technology.

Everything I am saying is about war and education and how the two go together, and the social, economic, and political ramifications of how military technology changes public education

When I say the change in education has made us what defended our democracy against, you said

"No one else made us do this, so we obviously did not defend our democracy against anything."

That seems a strange thing to say. We would be speaking German if at the beginning of WWI we had not rushed to bring our nation up to the level of German military technology and this includes bureaucratic technology that has radically changed politics! In 1916, our education had nothing to do with technology and vocational training. It was all about literature and culture. So here we are in lulla land totally unprepared for modern warfare, and Germany was swallowing up one country after another. This technology is as much about bureaucratic technology as it is about weapons.

"The German military organization is the world's model, at least from the standpoint of immediate accomplishment of results, and therefore we can hardly do better than to emulate it in its perfect working.....
There had developt in Europe and in America, among those active in the cause of universal peace, a trend to discredit the military service and by every means discourage young men from entering the services of their countries in their armies and their navies."

" J. A. B. Sinclair 1917 National Education Association Conference. There was no National Education Association before the urgent need to mobilize our nation for war.

Charles Sarolea wrote a book warning the world Germany was mobilizing for war and his book was ignored until WWI began.

In 1958 it was the USSR and nuclear warfare threatening us. Our national defense depends on us staying ahead of others in this arms race.

World events demanded we imitate Germany and become the most powerful military force on earth, or do you have another idea of how we could deal with that reality?

Now about my responsibility exactly what do you think I should have done? At first, there was no internet so I could not raise awareness. I have been on the internet for several years now, only be attacked, banned, hurt again, and again. Everyone seems to want to prove me a conspiracy idiot and how wrong I am, and if that does not silence me, I am banned from forums. I PROMISE YOU, MY SENCE OF RESPONSIBILITY HAS MEANT YEARS OF BEING HURT AND COMING BACK TO TAKE ANOTHER BEATING. I was hoping this forum would be different but here I am defending myself from someone who wants to blame me for what happened and says I don't know what I am talking about.

I want you to know statements like this

"This is self evidently false because if the past education promoted those things then those emerging from it would not have created the society we have today, would they?"

hurt me deeply.

How many years do you think you could care so much about something and keep trying when people who have never read a book on the subjects of Germany, bureaucracy, and education attack you like that? Why would you tell me to be responsible and then tell me how wrong I am?

Our lives were not all about money before the war and we did respect our elders, and no one of quality would be as disrespectful as you. Lawyers were lawyers because of a love of justice, and doctors were doctors because of a love of healing, and teachers were teachers because of a love of our nation and teaching, and reporters thought they were defending our democracy with their reporting. You didn't live that past so why do you think you know it? Disrespectful- know nothing know it alls, are our cultural crisis and if I can not change this, I will be glad to leave this planet.
.

That seems a strange thing to say. We would be speaking German if at the beginning of WWI we had not rushed to bring our nation up to the level of German military technology and this includes bureaucratic technology that has radically changed politics! In 1916, our education had nothing to do with technology and vocational training. It was all about literature and culture. So here we are in lulla land totally unprepared for modern warfare, and Germany was swallowing up one country after another. This technology is as much about bureaucratic technology as it is about weapons. — Athena

Germany, in world war 1, didn't "swallow up one country after another". They didn't even get to Paris. America entered that war not to protect it's democracy, but to protect it's economic interests.

Charles Sarolea wrote a book warning the world Germany was mobilizing for war and his book was ignored until WWI began. — Athena

All of Europe was mobilizing for war in the early 20th century. That's a major reason there WW1 started.

quote="Athena;433888"]Our lives were not all about money before the war and we did respect our elders, and no one of quality would be as disrespectful as you. Lawyers were lawyers because of a love of justice, and doctors were doctors because of a love of healing, and teachers were teachers because of a love of our nation and teaching, and reporters thought they were defending our democracy with their reporting. You didn't live that past so why do you think you know it?[/quote]

Unless you are 106, you didn't live that past either.

It's really not that complicated.

Generation 1 are responsible for bringing up generation 2 to cope well with whatever is thrown at them.
If generation 2 fail to cope (come up with bad policies in response, or fail to reverse bad policies after they're no longer appropriate), then generation 1 has done something wrong (or failed to do something right).
Generation 2 are responsible for bringing up generation 3 to cope with whatever is thrown at them...

I don't understand why you're having such trouble comprehending such a simple concept.

If generation 2 implement, or fail to reverse, policies which are bad, then generation 1 has failed in their task of preparing them for whatever is thrown at them.

If such a situation has occurred (and I agree it has), it is patently foolish to look back to the approach which absolutely, without doubt, lead directly to where we now are. We have to change something about the previous approach otherwise we will just re-run the same process.

It's like you're setting a ball rolling down a hill, you're fine with it near the top whilst it's going quite slowly, soon it gets out of control and starts running away from you. Your solution is just to take the ball back to the top of the hill because you liked it there. But we know exactly what will happen if you start the same ball rolling down the same hill the same way. It will be fine for a while and then start running out of control, just like it did last time.

As for your faux offense, any complaints about the state of affairs implicitly blames someone (even if only of dereliction). If you want me to say nothing about the fault in your generation, why do you get to harp on about the faults in mine, or my descendents.

The problems around the world are challenging and I am not sure what part in them the US should play? But we can know this is not the first time a democracy became a defender of the world. Our history pretty much parallels Athens's history. Athens's education also changed and became focused on technological correctness, while alarmed people spoke of the end of the Athens that was. Athens overstepped its boundaries and was taken down by Sparta and eventually Sparta collapsed because it's a population declined too much to defend itself.

I am concerned that our push for technology was necessary at one time, but it lacks wisdom. The 1958 National Defense Education Act was to expire in 4 years, and obviously that did not happen. We neglect history and do not have the perspective we need for good judgment. I think our expectations of technology were unrealistic and that we need to rethink our direction and where we want to go from here.

Germany, in world war 1, didn't "swallow up one country after another". They didn't even get to Paris. America entered that war not to protect it's democracy, but to protect it's economic interests. [/quote/]

Laugh, I could have sworn the glass was half empty but it you insist it is half full, then I guess that is true.

"We have seen how the Kaiser's marvelous soldiers carried their banner to the very outskirts of Paris an August and September, 1914. It is the Great God efficiency, to which the Germans were required by their commanders to pay homage of worship-and it behooves us either to effect a thing that will operate as well or to copy theirs. The fact of the world at war has silenct the erring lips that declared against the necessity for preparation against disaster, like that of Belgium and Servia." J.A. B. Sinclair 1917 NEA Conference.

There is no way the US would have entered the first world war if schools and the media had not convinced the population that the US had to defend democracy. The US was isolationist and did not want to get involved. The US was protected by an ocean in the west and an ocean on the east and did not feel threatened by a land invasion. The technology for airfare was not well developed. It did not have enough trained typists, engineers, mechanics for war and didn't have that many people enlisted in military service.

There was a lot of defending of colonies but that was far from being prepared to fight off an invasion with an army equal to Germany's army. Theodore Roosevelt entered a war with calvary. LOL That is comical compared the German military technology. Prussians changed the nature of war and I can not think of a nation that was keeping pace with the Prussians.
— Echarmion

All of Europe was mobilizing for war in the early 20th century. That's a major reason there WW1 started.

Please share your source of that information so it can be discussed. There was a lot of defending of colonies but that was far from being prepared to fight off an invasion with an army equal to Germany's army.