Truth and Education Commission

 

There have been several calls for a truth commission or a truth and reconciliation commission about several events including possible war crimes committed in Iraq. This may be a good step in the right direction if it is done right. In order to have a true democracy the public needs access to the information and education necessary to make rational decisions about all major policy issues. Even if the public doesn’t make the decisions directly they need accurate information to hold the representatives that do accountable. Under the current circumstances at best only a small percentage of the public has access to the information and education they need to run a sincere democracy. Past requests for the truth from a government that claims to be democratic were perfectly reasonable and should have been granted yet they weren’t. What many people may not fully understand is that if they start revealing the truth about one subject it may lead to questions about another one. For example a truth commission about the activities at Abu Ghraib may lead to disclosures about the CIA as many people already suspect. This could raise more questions about other activities being conducted by the CIA which may involve many other things including activities overthrowing governments, some of which may have been more democratic than the ones installed by the CIA; and tacit approval if not active participation in drug running operations run by allies of the CIA like the Nicaraguan Contra’s and other organizations; and corporate involvement in military activities like the incident where ITT was exposed helping to overthrow the Allende government in Chile. Information from credible sources has already been released about these activities but they have been confused by a lot of propaganda and conflicting reports.

 

Once a good and sincere truth commission gets started and the public becomes accustomed to finding out the truth the flood gates may open and the truth about many incidents may be revealed. In fact a large portion of the truth may have already been leaked to the public one way or another. This hasn’t happened in a manner that is well organized in a way the public can understand it but if this information is organized in the most efficient way possible and other potential factors that may effect a formal truth commission then it will help set up the commission in the most effective way possible. This is especially important if there is going to be some degree of immunity granted to people that come forward with the truth. In some cases this may involve deciding whether or not a dangerous person guilty of murder will be released to the public again. Proper planning will also help decide what if any reparations should be made and in what forms this should be done. Past Truth Commissions may not have been quite as successful as they have been made out to be; therefore it would be a good idea to review them and find any flaws so they don’t happen again. If they were as successful as they have been made out to be this review will only confirm that; however there is at least one example where the most famous one has turned out to be flawed. The South African truth commission let members of the former South African government free without any job training for non violent lines of work and many of them wound up working for mercenary organizations like Executive Outcomes.

 

A good truth commission should carefully consider priorities before formalizing the conditions. In most cases a truth commission gives a higher priority to revealing the truth and reforming democracy than it does to punishing people for their wrong doing. Some exceptions may be necessary. Most people wouldn’t want to risk putting a dangerous mass murderer back on the streets like Gary Ridgeway or Joseph Kony. In some case a truth commission may reveal more mass murders which people may not want to release. In some cases it may turn out that these mass murderers were once people that were put above reproach in the past. This may be due to the fact that the Mass Media isn’t nearly as unbiased as it pretends to be. Other priorities may involve deciding what subject should be explored first. The highest profile incidents include the war in Iraq and the war on terror but there may be many other subjects that are also just as important. In order to find this out it could be helpful to start by making a list of different subjects and goals and deciding the priorities after considering all of them. Generally speaking some of the top priorities should include setting up a good education system so that the public would have the information they need to make decisions; protecting the environment and preventing the downward spiral that could destroy the ecosystem currently being pursued by the corporations; stopping wars of all kind around the world by supporting peaceful alternatives; and a better effort to reform health care. All these goals should start by looking at the basics in any given subject and working up from there. Allowing the government to ignore the basics as they pursue a pseudo reform of any subject including the health care program they passed last year shouldn’t be considered acceptable. A truth commission shouldn’t be limited to violent situations as it has in the past and it should include improved education. It would be foolish to allow the Mass Media to set the priorities by focusing on one issue obsessively and ignoring subjects they don’t want to address. If the Mass Media was willing to do a good job they would have done much better already. People should always remember that one of the most important objections of any truth commission regardless of what you call it is to avoid a revolution that “eats its own children”.

 

Since the government and the Mass Media are currently unwilling to address the manner in an honest manner it might be better to start with an informal truth an education commission. In fact this is already happening. There may not be people referring to it in that manner but there are people trying to do their part to reveal parts of the truth to the best of their ability. This includes many authors and low profile web sites that the government and the mass media aren’t paying much if any attention to right now. These efforts could be better organized simply by making a list of all these organizations and books. For example some good organizations that are producing books about reforming the government are The American Empire Project and Free Press (founded by Robert McChesney). They have provided some good books that organize many of the information released in the past about government activities that have been undemocratic and how the Mass Media has been corrupted by commercial interests. There are many other academics that have addressed different subjects that are also important that are not included in the American Empire Project or Free Press like some of the authors who have research into the damage done by child abuse. The long term damage done by child abuse is mostly underestimated by most people.

 

Organizing a lot of information from a lot of different sources will be helpful but once this begins it will quickly become apparent that many of these sources often contradict each other and in some cases even themselves. The most credible ones will usually have the least amount of contradictions and mistakes. But in order to find out which organizations and individuals are credible it will be necessary to confirm their work even for the good ones. The most credible ones shouldn’t see any problem with confirming their work since if they did as good a job as they claim it will stand up to scrutiny and this will only confirm their credibility. When it comes to confirming the credibility of any one source the first thing to do may be to look at the quality of their organization skills. This won’t guarantee that they are credible or not but if they did a good job organizing their information it will be much easier to either confirm or refute the information. Surprisingly some sources have provided reasonably good organizational skills and when checking them it becomes clear that they are misrepresenting their sources. In most cases that I have seen where this has happened there have often been other red flags indicating problems without even checking the sources though. Other sources have done much better which clearly appear more credible but if they have a few bad sources in there it will be necessary to find them. In some cases this may involve sorting through tough subjects where a misinformation may have been spread to confuse the issue. If someone does a good job citing his sources and organizing his information then any one who believes his conclusions are false should review the sources and the work. Any effort to discredit someone with good organizational skills that doesn’t also discredit the sources or the way they were presented should be considered suspect.

 

It has often been said that the burden of proof should belong with the claimant. This seems reasonable in most cases but there may be some cases where the claimant doesn’t have the organizational skills necessary to meet this criterion. If this is the case then the burden of proof should belong with those who have the research abilities and sincerely want to find out the truth whether they like it or not. In some cases if the claimant doesn’t do a good job presenting his work due to lack of skills and there is something to his claim perhaps he could benefit from the help of a sincere researcher with better academic skills. There may be some cases where there is an effort to confuse the issue to cover something up or to obtain preferential treatment for a certain group. I have never heard anyone says “The burden of proof belongs to those that disagree with me and they have no credibility.” However there have been many people or organizations that have given this impression with their actions. Sorting through conflicting stories won’t be quick or easy. The public shouldn’t be given the impression that a truth commission will magically bring out the truth; instead they should be encouraged to learn how to sort through at least some of the details so that they can confirm for themselves what is true.

 

Another advantage of starting out with an informal truth commission is that the conditions of a good official truth commission should have the approval of the public based on a reasonable accurate perception of the truth. Under the current circumstances a large percentage of the public has been influenced heavily by misleading propaganda from many different sources. In order for these people to agree on a rational and fair truth commission they may have to learn how to sort through some of this propaganda on their own and figure out what is true. When Patrick Leahy called for a truth commission he was rejected and even ridiculed. This may have been a blessing in disguise. The public should have access to the truth but if the current politicians are in control of the conditions of a truth commission they may set unreasonable terms. One problem could arise when the truth comes out and the public becomes more aware of how the politicians and corporations have been using sophisticated ways to commit fraud and rob the public. When this happens the public may want some reparations.

 

Reviewing similar incidents will help to anticipate potential problems that may affect any possible Truth and Education Commission. This should include past truth commissions and many incidents where there were plea bargains for criminals which are very similar to truth commissions in some ways. One of the most famous cases is of course the South African Truth and Reconciliation Committee; however there are many other incidents that some people may not immediately associate with a truth commission. One example is Gary Ridgeway who agreed to cooperate with an effort to find out the truth about his past activities killing dozens of girls most of which were unsolved murders. In this case he didn’t receive freedom; he just avoided the death penalty. This provided the authorities to find out what happened to many of these missing girls and it gave psychologists to study the background of Gary Ridgeway and develop a better idea of why he became a serial killer. In this incident the public was never put at any risk once Ridgeway was caught since there was never any consideration of letting him free again; however in the case of Sammy “the Bull” Gravano it was different. He also worked out a plea bargain where he was released after a surprisingly short jail term in return for informing on many other mobsters and helping take down a much more powerful bunch of killers. This was at best a very tough call. If they didn’t cut a deal with him they would have left dozens of killers on the streets but when they did they had to let him go. Either way they had to take a risk and at the time they didn’t know how it would turn out. Fortunately he probably didn’t kill any one else but he did wind up involved in crime again selling ecstasy and is currently serving a nineteen year sentence. It is unlikely that he will live long enough to be released; he certainly won’t be released long before he dies. These are the types of things that should be considered when deciding who should receive immunity from criminal prosecution.

 

In many cases some of these killers may be psychopaths that either can’t control the urge to kill like Ridgeway or they won’t hesitate to kill if the think it is in their best interest like Gravano. Determining whether these people are a danger to society should be done by consulting with the most qualified experts in the appropriate field. More often than not that field shouldn’t be the legal profession. Lawyers are often portrayed as experts on many subjects but what they do is study, and in some cases creates, confusing laws that often benefit the client they work for. The more appropriate experts would probably include psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologist etc. that have gone through peer review. These academics are much more interested in doing the research and finding out what is the truth. They are also much more inclined to cite other academics that support their work, refute those that disagree and show the work behind their arguments. Allowing the lawyers to screen academic sources is part of the reason why we need a truth commission now.

 

Another important thing to consider might be what is going on behind the scenes to shows like “Gangland” on the History Channel. They seem to be obtaining a lot of cooperation from a lot of inmates one way or another but they don’t do a good job explaining to the public what kind of incentives they are offering. The details of many of these inmates may be more important than those of Gary Ridgeway since they offer a much larger variety of people with various records including many extremely violent people, a lot of much less violent people and many people somewhere in between. This could be more important since it covers the grey areas where it is much harder to draw the line between who is a further threat to society and who isn’t. this shouldn’t be rushed into and careful consideration should be given to the input of many academic experts from the appropriate fields. Under the current circumstances there may be way to many nonviolent offenders in jail while some of the most violent ones go free.

 

In the academic world they may not think of psychopaths the same way the majority of the public or the mass media does. In the academic world a psychopath may be defined as someone who is incapable of feeling empathy and has little or no concern for the well being of others. This doesn’t always mean they appear like raving lunatics in fact most psychopaths don’t appear this way at all. If they don’t learn how to at least create the appearance of normality they won’t remain out of jail for long therefore they shouldn’t be able to present to much of a threat to society. The bigger problem is those that do create the appearance of normality and can function in society it least to some degree. When that happens it is important to understand how they became psychopaths in order to know how to deal with them. In most if not all cases there is a history of abuse that they went through which led to them being violent in the first place. Knowing how serious this is may help understand whether there is any chance for rehabilitation or not. In the past this has been presented to the public as an excuse which should excuse the crimes. This is the wrong way to look at it; instead they should look at it as a contributing cause to what made them violent. In may in some times be legitimate cause to avoid the death penalty especially if they cooperate with the authorities but this doesn’t change the fact that they may still be angry with society and they still may not be able to control the urge to kill. If this is the case then few people would argue they should be allowed back into society. Even if they were the victim first that doesn’t change the fact that they are dangerous. In the case of Gary Ridgeway it is clear that he went out and committed arbitrary murders and is still prone to do so. Gravano didn’t kill without reason like Ridgeway but he still had a temper and wouldn’t hesitate to kill if he thought it was in his best interest.

 

If you consider a psychopath some one who is incapable of empathy this definition may also apply to people who commit more complicated crimes or activities that should be considered crimes and then hide behind the complexity of the activities and their political connections to maintain plausible deniability. This could be what people who start wars that kill thousands including many innocents and people who run businesses that also inevitably lead to many miserable deaths. This isn’t the typical view of what constitutes a psychopath but these activities lead to much more death and suffering than the mass murders that are generally considered psychopaths. If we have a sincere truth and education commission it may be helpful to reanalyze the way we think of these things. The people involved in these activities may be less likely to actually kill people in a direct way where the see right before their eyes the damage they are doing. This enables them to make a more complex argument especially if they are involved with a much larger group of people all supporting a belief system that justifies the activities going on. However in many cases it becomes clear that they may eventually have to create distortions so obvious that they clearly must know there is something wrong. When they have to use political pressure to demonize or discredit people to justify their activities they clearly are crossing the line. If they don’t admit they are participating in activities that are leading to mass murder or negligence that creates the same results it must be either because they are not being honest with themselves or their denial is false. These people are much more likely to continue what they are doing if their political power continues to go unchecked. In some ways they may fit the definition of a bunch of psychopaths but they would be much less likely to participate in their crimes if they weren’t in an environment where they would benefit from it. The problem with these people may be that they are raised in a system that seems to teach the upper class that they are entitled to rule the less educated rabble. If we had a true democracy with truly a independent media they would be much less likely to believe that they should be above reproach.

 

Even if many people don’t believe that a legitimate business like tobacco should be considered murder it will be much harder to say the same thing about war crimes if the truth was actually presented to the public instead of propaganda. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence indicating the war in Iraq was based on lies and it was a violation of international treaties. This isn’t limited to the war on Iraq; similar problems have been exposed on most of the military activities that the US government has participated in the past. This shouldn’t be limited to war. The government and the Mass Media have clearly been doing an incompetent job presenting many other subjects to the public including the environment, the economy and many other subjects including some that are class related. A sincere truth commission needs to prepare the public for the fact that they have been misled on many occasions by some of the authorities they may have trusted the most.

 

Once the truth becomes clearer it will become more obvious that some people have obtained their wealth through corrupt means at the expense of the public and the public will certainly demand reparations. If this isn’t anticipated ahead of time then the people with access to the information the public needs may not have the proper incentive to cooperate unless there is already enough evidence to file suit against them and recoup the losses. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the current system of civil law will be the most effective way of handling the situation. Under the current circumstances when a law suit is filed an excessive portion often goes to lawyers on both sides. It would be helpful to consider a system that reforms this system and allows more reasonable reparations without arguing over technicalities or allowing the legal profession to take an excessive cut out of everything. When it comes to reparations it will be helpful to organize available information in a much better manner and presenting it to the public before setting any formal terms for the reparations if they are included in a truth commission. If formal terms are set up before the public is given a better education about the subject the terms may be essentially set by those with a better education which may mean those that have been manipulating the system in the past would have more influence on these terms. This would essentially be like allowing the perpetrators control the so called justice system which in many cases has already happened.

  

A large amount of what a truth commission uncovers may involve the activities of covert organizations like the CIA, the NSA and other espionage organizations. This may involve their activities or alleged activities overthrowing governments including many that had much more popular support than the ones they installed, collusion with drug runners, influence over the media and the use of propaganda both abroad and at home and perhaps many other activities. Bizarre CIA conspiracy theories have often been ridiculed and portrayed as absurd but it is important to consider the definition of what a conspiracy is when analyzing this perception. A conspiracy is when two or more people conduct secret communication and/or activities that influence the public. That is essentially what the CIA was created to do; it’s part of their job description. They were created to provide covert activities to protect us from a potential invasion from the USSR. The assumption at the time was that we were at risk of another world war and we needed to protect ourselves against the covert activities of the USSR by doing the same thing. The covert mentality didn’t start with the cold war of course; it was a result of a constant threat from one source after another in one war after another that could be traced back thousands of years if you looked back in history. This doesn’t mean one unbroken conspiracy as some people seem to believe but it means that when one government collapse4s the next has often adopted many of the same tactics to control their people even though ultimately they failed in the past. What this may essentially mean is that most espionage activities have their routes in prejudicial beliefs. Alfred McCoy has done a good job, in what he calls the rise of a “Surveillance State” in “Policing America's Empire”, reviewing the activities that led to the creation of the CIA. He describes how the US government learned covert activities during their occupation of the Philippines and how they later used it in the USA and many other places around the world. This isn’t the first time that a government went through this learning process; The Catholic Church and the governments they supported went through this learning process when they were in power and they learned some of this from the Roman Empire that elevated them to power and the ancient Egyptians also learned some of these tactics. The text found at Deir El Medina on many scrolls and ostraca (pottery shards used to keep record) indicates that they used tactics similar to those described in Orwell’s book 1984.

 

In some ways the espionage tactics that the USA learned in the Philippines began even earlier. During the Nineteenth century there was a lot of propaganda being put out by the upper classes intended to make the working classes more productive without sharing more of the benefits than necessary. They were essentially trying to create a virtual slave state even while they were doing away with official slavery. Detective agencies like the Pinkerton’s learned how to infiltrate unions and they worked with the government that often used the police or the National Guard to break up strikes. If you look back when the constitution was first written you’ll find even more indication that the rich had an excessive influence over the government. They indicated that they didn’t believe the uneducated lower classes shouldn’t have much if any influence over the government because they didn’t know how to handle it. There was some truth to it but they could have addressed this problem by trying to provide a better education system for the lower classes so that they would know how to participate in government. Instead they made efforts to shut out the poor, minorities and woman who took decades to partially over come these obstacles. When a better education system was set up for the poor it was because of the industrial revolution and the rich found that uneducated people couldn’t deal with the new machines. At the beginning of the twentieth century they added history to the education system but it was added as part of a glorification process to encourage the support of “American Exceptionalism” which was used to encourage the public to support war efforts when necessary. This form of education was always unduly influenced by the rich and in some cases, like the Scopes trial, religious organizations.

 

This education system helped enable the mob mentality when the American Protection League went on witch hunts and again when Joe McCarthy went on an anti-communist crusade. The CIA came to power when McCarthyism was on the rise and some people believe the CIA was moderate by comparison. This wasn’t followed up by much if any effort to review the real problem with communism. Communism is based on the word commune which is a group of people that live and work together as a community. The version of Communism that many people subscribed to was supposed to stand up for the rights of the working class. It is hard to see what could be wrong with Communism when you look at it like that but that isn’t what Stalin did when he obtained power nor is this the version of Communism, that was presented to the American public. When Stalin, and perhaps Lenin as well, distorted Communism it served the purpose of the supporters of Capitalism to allow this to go uncorrected since they could demonize Stalin. This essentially means that one of the core beliefs that led to the creation of the CIA was flawed from the beginning. Instead of fighting against Communism we should have been fighting against totalitarianism all along. This false belief was drilled into the heads of most members of the public who didn’t know how to sort out the details on their own and those who tried were often demonized creating a cult support for the Capitalist ideology. If the conflict was phrased in the right way it would have been much more difficult to justify the support of puppet governments of the USA that suppressed democracy like the Shah of Iran, Ngo Dinh Diem of Viet Nam and many others. A review of the information about the CIA from credible source available already will clearly indicate that the CIA has often overthrown popular governments and supported existing tyrants or revolutions some of which later turned against us in countries around the word including Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia, Algeria, South Africa, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama and many more. Rather than protect national security the CIA has meddled in many governments around the world and suppressed the people of those governments virtually guaranteeing that we would always have an enemy to fight. Instead of protecting our national security the CIA may have become one of the greatest threats to national security by inciting hatred around the world.

 

 

The CIA has also been allegedly involved in activities with many of the greatest drug runners around the world at a time when we are supposed to be in a “War against drugs”. Some of these allegations come from very credible sources and they have been documented in numerous US courts and at Senate or House hearings about the subject. The CIA has at time acknowledged that they have dealt with some of these drug dealers and justified it as necessary in the “War against Communism” which as I indicated earlier is a flawed concept. Some of the most detailed and credible reviews of complicity with drug dealers may have been done by Alfred McCoy in "The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade" and Gary Webb In “Dark Alliance”. The work done by Gary Webb turned out to be much more controversial since it described how they occurred in the USA with at least some alleged knowledge and protection from the CIA. Both these books were very well organized and sourced. They both included a lot of testimony from credible sources in Senate hearings, news papers and many other sources that often confirmed each other. When dealing with a subject like this is it also inevitable that they will come across some testimony that isn’t as credible as others since they are often dealing with the criminal element; however if they don’t put undue weight on theses sources and attempt to back it up with confirmation then it should be acceptable. The reader can decide whether they want to trust the word of a drug dealer. Gary Webb went one step further and provided his sources and additional information available on line. This would enable the public to review his work and his sources and come to their own conclusions; this also sets a precedent for many other credible journalists who may want to use the same methods. By showing the work it should add significantly to the credibility of the investigator since he didn’t ask the public to rely solely on the credibility of the author. What happened in the case of Gary Web seems to be quite different. Many other mainstream news outlets, often using some “journalists” with a history of supporting the CIA, put out numerous reports discrediting Gary Webb and his work. His own newspaper withdrew their support for one reason ort another presumably after pressure was put on them and they acknowledged “mistakes” in the report which was interpreted as a retraction even though Gary Webb didn’t agree. The report no longer appears on the San Jose Mercury News website nor does there appear to be any acknowledgement of the fact that they did the story; however fortunately once you put some thing on the web like this and it is viewed by hundreds of thousands if not millions of people someone is bound to save it. It is still available online what the mainstream Media and the CIA seems to have done in this case is shut the barn door after the first horse got out of the barn the time to open the barn door and let the rest of the horses out is overdue. As far as I can see they didn’t do much if anything to review the sources and in some cases they supposedly admitted that they were accurate. This isn’t what I would consider the correct way to discredit an inaccurate news story; unfortunately many people that are accustomed to believing what they’re told from what they consider authority figures and mainstream media may not know how to recognize misleading tactics. Webb’s reports are much more important than many people may realize since it indicates that while the Reagan administration was cutting funds to the poor including schools that could have provided a better education to the black people affected by the Crack Cocaine explosion they may also have been dealing with the drug dealers that were supplying this epidemic to support the Nicaraguan Contra’s. a closer look at the activities of the Contra’s makes it even worse. The “Contra’s” is short for counter revolutionaries. They are essentially the remains of the Somoza regime which was a brutal dictatorship supported by the USA. The first revolutionaries had much more popular support in their country since they were opposed to the brutal dictatorship but they attempted to redistribute wealth in a communist government which the USA disagreed with. The continued suppression of the poor in Nicaragua may have led to allowing drugs into the USA to ravage the poor in the USA as well. If the details of this are confirmed and exposed they could indicate a degree of class warfare conducted by the rich against the poor.

 

 

There is much more evidence of class inequities than the CIA, Contra and Cocaine link. Some of the most important information about this isn’t kept secret but it isn’t presented to the public ion a rational manner either. Part of the problem is that the education system is controlled and financed at the local level. This might not be as big a problem if we had a fair distribution of wealth that included giving people fair compensation for the wages but that isn’t the way it is. The upper classes have always had most if not all control over the most powerful economic institutions and they use this control to ensure that they always get the lion’s share of the benefits of the economy even though the poor and the middle classes do the lion’s share of the work. They even add insult to injury by using their control of the media to make it seem like the lower classes and the unions are responsible for “class warfare”. Economic ideologies have been controlled primarily by the rich and they have used this to develop a cult support among some segments of society and turn them against those that don’t conform to the capitalist ideology. A sincere truth and education commission needs to recognize the difference between education where people can figure out what is true and indoctrination where the truth is dictated to people.   

 

In order for a sincere truth and education system to be successful they will have to learn how to deal with cult activity. Many people have been raised to believe what they are told by their leaders but they are often only supposed to trust the appropriate leaders. This means they aren’t accustomed to sorting through details themselves and finding out what is true. If the appropriate leader tells them what to believe they are supposed to accept it without question even when it makes no sense. This has become clear in many fringe cults like those that followed Jim Jones and Charles Manson. They often submitted to coercive tactics of their cult and followed orders without resistance until it was too late. Those that objected at the last minute were intimidated or killed by these cults. This type of activity isn’t limited to “fringe cults”: it is also found in what many people consider mainstream religions. A review of the activities during the height of the inquisition will confirm this. People who dared challenge the authority of the church were intimidated harassed and if necessary tortured and killed. If you go back farther in history there is evidence of similar tactics used to develop many of the beliefs that are now considered sacred. The bible is based on the texts of holy books or scrolls that weren’t burnt in the first two centuries of the modern era. When Constantine converted to Christianity the most powerful bishops debated the “truth” and intimidation harassment and if necessary torture and murder were used to decide which text would be holy divine truth. More modern religions have done a partial job reforming but when they encounter emotional opposition from some of the strongest believers they often compromise without addressing many of the most important issues. Many moderates find it much easier to go along with the extremists in the short term than to confront them one time after another. This often results in small changes which are often not remembered. This means that many religious people are unaware of how much their divine beliefs are constantly changing. Philip Greven Alice Miller and some other academics have reviewed some of the recommended child rearing methods for many religions including Fundamentalist Protestants. First of all it is important to keep in mind that the true meaning of a fundamentalist should be based on the word fundamental which means basics. A good fundamentalist will check the basics and get them right before going on to more complicated things; unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be what the people that call themselves fundamentalists do. While reviewing some of the child rearing advice given by “fundamentalists Miller and Greven found that they often recommend people start using harsh disciplinary action before a child even learns how to talk. In some cases they even admit that they do this because they know that the child won’t remember this and they are using force and coercion to teach the child that the parent is boss. To put it bluntly they beat the ”truth” into the children without any scrutiny. This essentially means that many children are taught to believe what they are told no matter how senseless it is and they continue to do this when they become adults. This is much more common than most people would want to believe and it is easy to keep on denying it since the worst of this type of activity now tends to be done behind closed doors. People didn’t always feel the need to do this behind closed doors if you look through the right history books you might find examples where this type of child rearing was taken for granted and if you look at the behavior of many people in the developing world you may find that it is still common. Religious beliefs have also made their way into secular thinking as well. Many of the beliefs that were developed by secular institutions were developed before they sorted through all the details of religious beliefs. Many non religious stories and beliefs have their roots in the bible even though they haven’t been traced to that source. Two of the most common example include Anti-Semitism and homophobia. These superstitions both have religious roots but many people who are no longer religious still maintain these beliefs. A sincere truth and education system shouldn’t use coercion to force people to adopt beliefs that aren’t accurate. Finding out the truth and teaching it to the public won’t be quick or easy.

 

Cult activity may create some obstacles before even beginning a formal truth commission since ideally this should be done with input and agreement from the public. To understand how cult ideology might influence the conditions of a truth commission it might be helpful to consider an overly exaggerated hypothesis, Imagine if five percent of the people were somewhat rational and could sort through details to some degree reasonable well. Another five percent of the people belonged to what were considered fringe cults like the Manson or Jones cults. The other ninety percent of the people belonged to either mainstream religion A or B. Perhaps 50% belonged to religion A and 40% belonged to religion B. Imagine they both had apocalypse myths where they would fight the other and the right religion would win and vanquish the wrong religion. In most cases they wouldn’t pay much attention to these myths if things were bearable but during a crisis they might start to take them more seriously and eventually after they listened to enough demagogues they began WW 3 which could involve nuclear weapons. If these people were allowed to dominate the conditions of a truth commission it could devolve into a fight that could lead to scorched earth tactics that could destroy life as we know it. To put it bluntly if it isn’t handled right instead of getting a truth commission that avoids “eating its own children” we could have a self fulfilling prophecy that destroys the world and if the premise of the myths aren’t true then there will be nothing left. In order to avoid this many people may have to review their beliefs before we can have a rational formal truth commission but this shouldn’t stop education effort from continuing or escalating. Some problems like environmental destruction and the constant threat of war based on propaganda should be addressed sooner rather than later or it could lead to a slippery slope of destruction.

 

There are also some examples of activities that are still being covered up by various religious institution including the current controversy surrounding Catholic priest that have been abusing children. This has been happening at an epidemic level yet the Catholic Church continues to decline to review many of the activities that lead up to this issue and the attempts to cover it up. There has been plenty of research into the causes of abuse by other non religious pedophiles and they have found that most if not all of these pedophiles have been abused themselves before they became abusers. This principle hasn’t been explored nearly as much when it comes to the Catholic priest scandal. In the case of the priests they have been raised in a religious manner and the later part of their education is generally handled by the Church in Seminole School. I have seen very few reviews of how the Catholic Church educates their priests; but there are a few exceptions which may help understand how this might contribute to the problem. One review has been provided by Bernard Ruffin who wrote a biography of Padre Pio. Padre Pio was given the name Francesco Forgione at  birth and he took the name Pio when he was ordained into the priesthood. He was famous for the Stigmata and other mystical claims but the more important thing in this case may be the traditional way he was raised. He didn’t remember being disciplined in a harsh manner by his parents but his father remembers at least one incident where he lost his temper when Francesco was crying at night and he shook him and dropped him on the floor. This led to an emotional reaction from his mother. He later went to school to train to become a priest, since he needed a high school education and this wasn’t available to most people in southern Italy at that time he went to a religious school. This school taught children by using strict disciplinarian methods and dictating the truth to them. When they made mistakes or misbehaved this was dealt with by using corporal punishment. They were often hit on the palm of their hand with a ruler or subject to more severe punishment perhaps with paddling. When he went to Seminole School this type of discipline escalated. He underwent some of the strictest disciplinary methods that the Catholic Church ever implemented. He was taught to obey all orders without question and to show his obedience he would undergo what they called “the discipline” which meant they would flagellate themselves. This was far more severe than what most priests went through. The majority of the discussion about padre Pio is about the alleged mystical aspects of him; however the way he was raised may be more important especially since it isn’t in dispute. This shows how the Catholic Church taught people to accept authority without question and even though Pio’s Seminole School didn’t have any reports of sexual abuse it did have examples of physical abuse that encouraged people to obey authority. Later in life their were reports of other priests that were involved in sexual abuse and when someone thre4atened to report them Pio’s response was to just deny it but when he was told that it was true he tried to convince the person threatening to reveal it to keep it quite to protect the reputation of the Church. This indicates that people from Seminole School may have been taught to cover things up rather than expose it and fix it; further more these stories were from the fifties and it was at least a couple more decades before they started being exposed on a large scale.

 

Another example of a story where someone went through Seminole School was when James Carroll became a priest. He told his story in “Constantine’s Sword”. This wasn’t nearly as severe as the discipline padre Pio went through nor is it likely that most priests went through what Padre Pio went through but it is a start in understanding how the Catholic Church educates their priests. He also told about how the Catholic Church dictates the truth and he told about one incident where he was called before his superior about a book that he was about to read. The superior indicated that it was on the non approved list from the Catholic Church and ordered him to hand it over which he did. This indicates that the Catholic Church was still relying heavily on censorship to teach their version of the truth. These don’t directly relate to the problem with Pedophilia and it would be more important to look at the background of those that actually became pedophiles; however it will shed some light on how they come to absolute conclusions about the truth and this is important whether you are trying to expose the background for this scandal or any other one. There is a strong possibility that they may have endured some kind of abuse as children and perhaps this escalated in Seminary School. In order to disclose this it would help if the Catholic Church would provide more cooperation but they continue to cover things up and deny that this could possibly have any thing to do with the scandal. In order to find the root cause of the abuse, and prevent this from continuing, the activities leading up to the abuse need to be exposed with or without the cooperation of the church. If other Catholic Priest that have left the Church come forward with more explanations about how they educate their priests this would help. There should be serious doubt about the moral authority of any institution that continues to cover up scandals like this.

 

Another thing that many religious people of all religions may want to consider is why, if the God they worship is benevolent, he remains silent while many atrocities are committed by the religious institutions that are delivering his messages. If God really is benevolent there has to be a good answer to this question and many others that will stand up to scrutiny. Religious people may have to decide whether or not they can find out the truth with or without the help of God or people who claim to speak in his name.

 

 

Some of the most consistent calls for disclosure come from a group of people that are generally considered fringe; these are people that want the truth about UFOs. They have made many calls for disclosure about what the US government knows about this phenomenon and they are not all believers in extraterrestrials as some people have been led to believe. A close look at the subject seems to indicate that either there is something to this phenomenon or there is a massive effort to make it appear as if there is something to this. If the UFOs are real this doesn’t necessarily mean they are extraterrestrial although that is one of the possibilities that should be considered. A close look at the way this is being handled seems to indicate that the high profile people on both sides of the issue seem to make an enormous amount of obvious mistakes. People on both sides of the issue are routinely passing up the opportunity to encourage the public to take a closer look at the basic principles of science before trying to figure out the answers about UFOs. Would any one consider it a good idea to teach calculus to first grade children before they learn addition and subtraction? Of course not; yet this is essentially what people on both sides of the issue are attempting to do when it comes to UFOs. Even if they are extraterrestrial they must have gone through a much more advanced learning process when it comes to science and in order to understand them it will help to review that. If they aren’t extraterrestrials then it would still be a good idea to learn more about science and this will provide the evidence to refute this belief. Either way more education about science is called for. The quality of the education about science has been made clear by some of the stories that the Mass Media has presented to the public including many claims that they have recently found water on Mars and the Moon which is false. In order for there to be water on either Mars or the Moon they have to have an atmosphere thick enough to support it which they don’t. What they have found is Ice not water and at least in the case of Mars this isn’t news; they have known there was ice on Mars for a long time. This should indicate that the public isn’t well enough educated about science and that the Mass Media is doing more to distort this lack of education than to correct it.

 

Part of what a truth commission does will be to disclose what has often been ridiculed as fringe conspiracy theories. Some of these conspiracy theories really are ridiculous of course but that doesn’t mean that we should automatically assume that all conspiracies are absurd. In fact the official explanation for 9/11 is that it was a conspiracy hatched by Muslim extremists. It should be kept in mind that the definition of a conspiracy is “activities or communications between two or more people that are held in secret and that affect the public.” When the government makes laws behind closed doors and the public doesn’t find out about it until they have to pay the price for it this fits the definition of a conspiracy. In order to put an end to major conspiracies the government and the most powerful institutions have to stop conducting a large portion of their activities that affect the public behind closed doors. In order to figure out whether or not a conspiracy theory should be considered fringe or not it should be necessary to uncover it instead of just ridiculing it.

 

Robert McChesney and John Nichols did a review of the War on Iraq and the 2004 election that may shed some light on how we elect our presidents and start wars with the help of the Mass media in their book “Tragedy and Farce”. This type of review may be helpful in a truth commission to understand whether or not we are electing our politicians in a rational way or not however I suspect that it might be more helpful to review the 2000 election. In the aftermath of 9/11 many people may have forgotten most of what happened during that election already. When reminded they might remember the Florida recount scandal most but that wasn’t even half the problem with that election. The 2000 election was carried out in an absurd manner right from the beginning. If this is what passes for a democratic election in the USA then the state of democracy is in serous trouble. An election is supposed to be the way the public chooses their leaders in a democratic way and these leaders are supposed to stand up for the best interest of the public but the public receives very little if any knowledge about the most important issues during any given election cycle and the 2000 election may be one of the most absurd elections in history. For starters on any given election the Mass Media starts telling the public who the viable candidates are months if not years ahead of time. The members of the public make little or no effort to change this and help decide for themselves who should run. If someone wants to be president and the Mass Media doesn’t give them any coverage they haven’t got a chance to get the attention of the public and win which essentially means that the Mass Media has veto power over who can run for president. Reviewing the way the Mass Media covers election should help us understand what is wrong with our democracy and fix it.

 

The 2000 election was a long series of absurd activities passing for a campaign to elect one candidate or another. These activities include a lot of coverage of polls that seemed to tell the public that the nominees would inevitably be Bush and Gore even before the primaries happened. They were portrayed as the front runners from the begging. When John McCain won New Hampshire by going on a bus tour and carrying out a series of discussions directly with the public this was considered a great upset. The Bush campaign went on to other states with a massive advertising campaign to discredit John McCain by using attack ads that had little if any credibility but the Mass Media didn’t do nearly enough to point out how much distortion they were using so a large percentage of the public made up their minds on who to vote for based on an absurd set of lies. This was how the Bush money machine with their campaign rangers who raised one to three hundred thousand dollars each ran a campaign to obtain votes. The election was based not on any effort to educate the public but a massive effort to carpet bomb the public with propaganda in the form of campaign commercials. Since the Mass media was making a fortune off of these ads they had little incentive to hold the campaigns accountable. This included an ad which used subliminal messages to call Al Gore a rat. This was followed up by a lot of media coverage. The 2000 campaign was a long series of events that had little or nothing to do with educating the public about the issues and where each candidate stood on them including the following. There was a debate where they allowed ordinary citizens to ask the candidates questions but they had to submit their questions in writing and get them approved first. This essentially meant that the control of the election system wasn’t really in the hands of the public; if a member of the public had the opportunity to ask an important question and the Media didn’t want to report on it they wouldn’t and only those present to hear the answer would know about it. There was an incident where both Al Gore and George Bush were asked what they would do if a convicted murder who received the death penalty was pregnant at the time. In stead of thinking about the question and pointing out the flaws in it both candidates provided an answer they thought would be in line with their position of abortion. Bush replied that he would have allowed the mother to have the baby before executing her; and Gore said he would allow her to choose whether or not to have her baby before executing her. The fact that the two leading candidates couldn’t put more thought into the question than that should raise some serious questions. At one of the debates Al Gore marched up to Bush in an intimidating way before answering a question. In an interview after woods Bush said he thought “he was going to hit me”. There were many reports about how Condoleezza Rice was tutoring Bush because he knew little if anything about world affairs. There were a couple of incidents where the media gave Bush a “pop quiz” implying correctly that he knew little about much of anything. The toughest questions he received during the campaign before a national audience probably didn’t come from a reporter but they came from David Letterman. Bush showed up expecting this to be fun and games and he seemed surprised when he encountered tougher questions from a comedian than he ever encountered from any one else. The was a lot of focus on the death penalty and the fact that Bush was governor of a state that was fast tracking the death penalty minimizing opportunity for appeals. This included one example where a person who was almost certainly innocent of the crime he was sentenced for was executed. This was Gary Graham who was tried and convicted of two major crimes one of which he was sentenced to life the other to death. There was no doubt that he committed the crime he was sentenced to life for; he even confessed to it. This involved an incident during a robbery spree when he shot some one and seriously maimed him for life but since this person didn’t die it wasn’t a death penalty case. The crime he executed for was another story where he was put in a line up and there were some doubts raised about the validity of the identification before it was done. There were two other witnesses who said it wasn’t Gary Graham but they weren’t interviewed by Graham’s lawyer and Bush refused to consider this when deciding not to pardon him. Many people may think that he did another crime which was bad enough and that person could have died so he deserved it any way but this still means that they are making their decisions on false facts and the real killer got away with it. There was also a scandal about one of his faith based institutions that he supported that was implicated in abusing children. These people were not held accountable since they were a faith based institution the belief was they should be held to the same standards as a secular institution. There is a lot of evidence to indicate that this type of abuse leads to more violence later in the life of these children which means they will probably contribute to crime later in their life. There were plenty of stories about Bush’s business dealings most of which wound up losing money yet he wound up making a profit any way due to help from campaign contributors of his father who later became his campaign contributors. There was reporting on the way Bush avoided going to Nam by joining the national guard then didn’t report to duty on many occasions. He wasn’t held accountable presumably due to connections through his father. At the last minute there was a story about a DWI that Bush was charged with. The only thing missing was the sincere questions about serious issues that people need to make rational decisions. This is just a small sample of the things that happened during that election before the Florida controversy. A close look at the Florida controversy may indicate that in addition to the fact that the people didn’t have the information they needed to make a rational decision the decision the did make may not have been honored. Thousands of people seemed to have voted for Pat Buchanan in a county that was strongly against him due to a confusing ballot that put his name close to Gore’s. there were many other irregularities that may not have been corrected partly due to the activities of Katherine Harris, Jeb Bush and the members of the Supreme Court that were appointed by republican presidents including George H W Bush. Four years later after Bush won a second term the Daily Mirror asked “How can 59,054,087 people be so dumb?” This question could just as easily be asked about the 2000 election for the people that voted for both Bush and Gore since there were almost as many problems with Gore’s record.

 

The assumption that we should choose between two candidates who behave in such and absurd manner is insane. Their were other candidates that were on the ballot in a large part of the country that included Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader who were presented to the public by the Mass Media as fringe candidates who didn’t have a chance; however they weren’t the only other candidates at that time. John Hagelin, Howard Phillips and Harry Browne were also on the ballot in a large enough part of the country to win. None of these candidates had a chance due to the fact that the Mass Media indoctrinated the public into believing they would be a wasted vote therefore they had to vote for the most corrupt Democrat, Al Gore, or the most corrupt Republican, George Bush. Considering a ballot with proportionate representation would help solve this problem since the voter would know that even if their first choice didn’t win their second choice candidate would apply. This wouldn’t mean they have two votes since the second choice doesn’t apply unless the first choice is rejected. This would enable the public to influence the choice of candidates when the two leading parties get too corrupt they could vote for an alternative party. Another way to improve the system could involve setting up an interview process which was controlled by members of the public. They could create a job application similar to what vote smart does and control a interview process where candidates would be invited to show up and answer questions from the public. If they decline to fill out the application or show up for the interviews they wouldn’t be eligible to be on the ballot. This would be more like a job interview than a campaign which perhaps is what we should have been doing all along. No employer would ever allow the applicant to control the hiring process yet that is exactly what we’ve been doing all along.

 

After the 2000 election the absurdity continued and even escalated in some ways even before 9/11 although most people may have forgotten. There were several foreign policy incidents which were handled badly including incidents with Russia and China and the cutting off of relations with Korea for no clear reason except for the fact that a new president was in office. In order to understand the break off in relation with Korea it would help to remember what happened in 1999/2000 with Korea. There were negotiations with Korea to develop better relations with the help of former president Jimmy Carter. They managed to come to a tentative agreement that would improve the relationship and allow weapons inspectors to confirm compliance with non nuclear proliferation agreements among other things. Another related incident which received very little attention at the time was the fact that the primary reason used by the USA not to confirm the international ban on land mines was that they needed this option to maintain security in Korea. Regardless of whether or not this is a legitimate excuse it would have been a matter of time before they no longer could claim this as a justification for declining to approve this treaty. This would mean that thousands of innocent children, who are among those most likely to be injured by landmines, would still be at risk of death and severe children due to the activities of the USA government. George Bush’s foreign policy never improved however after 9/11 the way he was perceived changed dramatically. This wasn’t because he became any more experienced or did a better job; instead it was because the emotional responses from the public sky rocketed and the rational thinking plummeted due to the attack and the massive amount of propaganda that was fed to the public.

 

Few sincere and rational people who are paying attention could possibly believe that the government and the media are truly trying to look out for the best interest of the public in a democratic manner. It should seem pretty obvious that the most powerful institutions are trying to manipulate the public and for the most part they are succeeding. Another way to look at it may be if they were trying to manipulate the public in the most effective way possible and maintain their power would this be the best way to do it? If this is the case wouldn’t they be better off being less obvious? Are the political insiders so stupid that they can’t come up with better candidates than Bush, Gore or any of the other politicians that seem to make an enormous amount of incredibly foolish mistakes? There seems to be enough evidence to indicate that some of the political insiders are much smarter than that yet the way the media and campaigns are run is looking more and more like a satire than a real attempt to run a democracy. This isn’t limited to any one election cycle; they all seem to be full of absurdities. The Media coverage about just about everything is also so absurd that it is hard for any reasonable person to avoid seeing something is wrong. Either the most powerful people in our society are grossly incompetent or they have some kind of a hidden agenda that doesn’t seem to make any sense at all. Do they truly believe that any but the most naïve would ever believe that Fox is “fair and balanced”. What kind of person can’t see that Glen Beck is an absurd demagogue? Do they believe the public won’t notice they’re replacing news reporting with newscaster who make up for it by flirting more and using more and more hype? This is just as bad as what George Orwell described in 1984 but it is real and some of the members of the public really do have a good enough education to realize what is going on. The education system couldn’t collapse so fast unless there was a purge of some kind and the people manipulating the public should realize this. Why would they be so obvious? Regardless of why the public has noticed something is wrong and many of them are speaking out. The ones receiving the most attention from the Mass Media are the Tea Party members. These seem to be among the most conservatives and there is some doubt about whether or not it is entirely a grass roots movement or not. When you see people like Dick Army, Glen Beck and Sarah Palin emerge as leaders of this group it should raise some questions about whether or not these people are following the lead of a bunch of demagogues. The people leading the extreme right wing have become so obvious that it is much easier for many people with a modest education to figure out something is wrong on their own. Unfortunately there also seem to be a lot of people that are raised to believe what their told from the right leaders which happen to be the right wing demagogues. What this is doing may involve driving some people to the extreme right wing and making it so obvious that many other people will abandon the right wing. This could create more conflict between the two groups which could enable the political leaders to implement more divide and rule tactics.

 

The problem with this is that we are in a situation where there are a growing number of problems in the world that are escalating beyond control. The environment is being destroyed. There is a constant state of war or what is being portrayed as war. Even if the “War on Terror” isn’t a traditional war it could be and is being used to incite violence that could escalate out of control. The class differences and environmental damage could combine to create conflicts that steadily escalate until society as we know it could be threatened one way or another. Do the leaders of our country see this? Are they so foolish that they would allow this to happen? If everything breaks down they will be the leaders of nothing or they will wind up being overthrown. If they’re capable of thinking rationally they should realize they are taking society on a self destructive path. The most powerful institutions have access to many of the best academic researchers in the world and they could and should be able to use the information they could receive from them to make much more rational decisions. Surely some of them know that there is something seriously wrong and they would cooperate with a truth and education commission. Unfortunately for one reason or another the Mass media is doing little if anything to get these rational messages to the public so they could make intelligent decisions. Those that are making the decisions should know that they aren’t even doing what is in their own best interest unless they have extremely closed minds which many of them may but it is hard to believe that they all do. This seems to create a scenario which may be more insane and foolish than many of the theories presented as fringe theories. Under these circumstances it would seem like a good idea to consider other possible explanations perhaps including some of these so called fringe theories. That doesn’t mean we should jump to conclusions though. Most of these fringe theories really do have simple flaws that are easy enough to understand to rule them out in their entirety.

 

If the neither the traditional explanation nor the fringe theories seem to make sense it may help to review everything starting with the basics of any given subject and to develop one or more theories that do make sense. If there are more than two or more theories that may be true, or even if they can be ruled out but many people still believe them, it may help to develop solutions that work for all theories if possible. For example regardless of which theory is true it would be a good idea to figure out how to protect the environment in the most effective way possible; how to avoid wars in the most effective way possible; and how to set up an economic system that is fair to everyone without using indoctrination tactics to manipulate the uneducated. These things could be done with the help of a truth and education commission. Exactly how this should be run is harder to know for sure which is why it should be considered carefully before setting the conditions for any immunity and any reparations. This could be done by considering different proposals including some that may not initially be complete.  

 

One thing that might be worth considering is the possibility that information is already being released on a controlled basis. In fact there should be no doubt that there is some of this going on already. On one extreme if people leak information when it helps them und use coercion to prevent other information from being released this is an example of controlled disclosure and plenty of stories about this have already been exposed. It may also be worth considering that some people in powerful positions know that we are on an unsustainable path and they are releasing a lot more information in preparation for more extensive disclosure that could take place in the form of a truth commission of some kind. On the other extreme there is the conspiracy theory presented that claims there is a group called the “illuminati” that is allegedly controlling just about everything. This theory has been presented by many people including Jim Marrs who is one of the highest profile conspiracy theorist that seems to believe this. In the promotion for his book “Rule by Secrecy” he claims the Illuminati can be traced back to ancient Egypt. If you look in the book however the only thing he seems to provide to back this up seems to be unconfirmed rumors. Jim Marrs has a track record of including as many mistakes, including some that he should have caught, as he does accurate pieces of information. Whenever there is a source like this everything should be subject to confirmation. It is more likely that many of the manipulation tactics were passed on from one civilization to another often with some changes along the way. In many cases the records have been lost but it would be difficult to imagine one non broken conspiracy that goes that far without being exposed. Many smaller conspiracies have been exposed but in most cases there doesn’t appear to be a connection to each other. I’m not aware of any conclusive evidence of any of this but it is worth considering the possibility that there could be something to it or something in between the extremes. If so then once a truth commission gets going then there might be a lot of allies that join in. If it isn’t so then their may still be a lot of people that realize that something is wrong and they join in anyway.

 

This is just one of many seemingly bizarre theories that many people want to consider; another one is the Apocalypse theory that many people have been led to believe. This theory is very complex and hard to understand especially since there are so many variations to it but it is worth considering because many people are already predisposed to believe it even if it doesn’t make sense. The current events and the bizarre way they’re being presented by the Mass Media may be partially responsible for more people thinking we are approaching what they call “the end of days”. Most of these Apocalypse theories involve a major battle where good fight evil. As indicated before this could only lead to more destruction not salvation. In this case it would be worth considering it to debunk it and prevent it before demagogue turn this into a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

One example that might be worth considering is the hypothesis presented by Philip Zimbardo in “The Lucifer Effect” (2007). Philip Zimbardo indicates that he believes people father up the chain of command should be held responsible for the abuses and torture in Iraq and other locations around the world. He presents himself as an authority primarily because of an experiment he conducted in 1971 known as the Stanford Prison Experiment and a review of other similar research projects. He attempt to argue that the situation was the primary cause for the abuses at Abu Ghraib. There should be no doubt that many of his claims have some legitimacy however a closer look may indicate there may also be some flaws in his work or even a conflict of interest. This doesn’t mean his work should be dismissed especially since some of it may be relevant and it may be better in some ways than most other sources; however it should be held to a thorough review by other people in the appropriate academic fields and he shouldn’t be the lead source of review for this as I will indicate.

 

There are several ways to confirm or refute Philip Zimbardo’s work including some criticism from Phillip Greven and Alfred McCoy; a review of his career in chronological order which isn’t necessarily the way he presented it; and a review of the way other prison researchers conduct their work to see if it supports his work. The biggest problem may be that he seems to claim the Stanford Prison Experiment was primarily to study prison psychology but if that were true this may not be the right way to go about it.

 

The criticism from Phillip Greven and Alfred McCoy was actually directed at the work of Stanley Milgram but it could just as easily be applied to the work of Philip Zimbardo. Philip Greven criticized Milgram for declining to look into the background of his research subjects to see how they were raised. He claimed that he might have done a much better job if he had read Alice Millers book “For Your Own Good”; however this wasn’t a very good example in Milgram’s case since Milgram went to press first. It might have been better if he sited Benjamin Spock or other work that went to press earlier; however in Philip Zimbardo’s case he didn’t go to press until 2007 so even though he wouldn’t have known about it when he did his experiment he could have and perhaps should have known about it and many other good books similar to it when he wrote his The Lucifer Effect. Greven, Miller and many other psychologists that studied the upbringing of children have found that violent behavior and disciplinarian teaching encourages violent behavior later in life and it encourages people to be more likely to follow orders blindly which should be applicable to the work that Philip Zimbardo did. The early upbringing of a child is just the beginning. Child abuse often leads to bullying in school which could be followed by hazing. Hazing is a manipulation tactic that involves using coercion to encourage conformity this is similar to what they do in boot camp and in religious organizations. There were similarities present during the Stanford Prison Experiment. The situation that Philip Zimbardo claims to be an important factor is of course part of it but the earlier upbringing may be just as important if not more important. If he reviewed the upbringing of his subjects he could have found out if the ones that were more violent came from a more violent background with more abuse from their parents and perhaps bullying or hazing later. In the beginning of The Lucifer Effect he indicated some knowledge of this when he said that someone he grew up with became violent partly because of the way he was abused by his father; however he provides little more review into this subject throughout the rest of The Lucifer Effect. There may be few hints but unless the reader is looking for it he won’t find these.

 

Alfred McCoy indicated he thought Milgram may have been working for the CIA. McCoy didn’t directly indicate he thought Philip Zimbardo was working for the CIA but he did claim there were similarities with the Stanford Prison Experiment. McCoy has been researching the CIA for over thirty years. In the case of Milgram he claimed that he came to this conclusion for several reasons including the fact that Milgram initially tried to get a grant to research the use of mescaline on people which was turned down. This is similar to several of the projects that the CIA has been involved in the past that were exposed including a similar research project on the use of LSD. Milgram did his research project with the help of a grant from the National Science Foundation that was supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). Other requests for support that weren’t supported by the ONR were turned down and when his career was in trouble as a result of the controversy around this study he was hired by someone that just left the ONR and this saved his career. McCoy also claims that several of the most prominent psychologists of the twentieth century including Milgram and several former members of the American psychiatric association and the American Psychology Association may have contributed, unwittingly or not, to research to help the CIA understand how to use coercion tactics and psychological torture. In Philip Zimbardo’s case he received his grant directly from the ONR. Philip Zimbardo claims to be an opponent of the Viet Nam War which should raise some doubt about why he was doing this type of research with a grant from the ONR. Why would he accept the grant and why would they give it to him if they had opposing goals? One possibility worth considering might be that he was only providing a token opposition to the war and he may have used this to lessen the criticism that may have been even greater than what Milgram faced otherwise. A review of his anti-war activities could either confirm or refute this hypothesis. If he was a sincere anti-war protester he almost certainly could have done more to warn the public about the manipulation tactics he was studying. Another indicator of why this project was done could be the potential uses it could have had and whether or not they would have known when they were in the planning stage. Even if he wasn’t working for the CIA he knew he was receiving support from the ONR which was a branch of the military; and he knew or should have known that this could have potential benefits for improving the way boot camp is run and other coercive activities including those eventually used at Abu Ghraib. Also it is virtually guaranteed that even if Philip Zimbardo didn’t know it the CIA would have taken notice of this research or any other research like it since it would help them with coercive activities. There have been several investigators of the CIA that claimed that they consulted with Psychologists working in the academic world; former CIA director William Colby even admitted this before congressional hearings. He couldn’t have known it would be used this way assuming it was but he could have anticipated the possibility and done more to warn people much sooner.   

 

A review of his career in chronological order could help understand what the primary focus of his research was and whether or not it is research into prison behavior or other activities. He was a classmate of Milgram in high school and they both told the story about how Milgram was the smart one and Philip Zimbardo was the popular one and the later found out that each of them wanted the other distinction. He claims he grew up in the Bronx and he learned how to be street smart and become the leader of the crowd. He acknowledges using the basement later used by Milgram in his Obedience to authority experiment. He also acknowledges that he discussed it with Milgram and in 1969 he conducted another lesser known study that was a variation of Milgram’s obedience to authority experiment. His Stanford Prison Experiment appears to be as much about obedience to authority as it is about prison activities. He followed this up with another project to help people opening a new jail conduct a mock prison which seems to a lot like his Stanford Prison Experiment; this didn’t involve realistic research about actual prison life for the same reason as the first experiment but it could have advanced research in manipulation tactics. He reviews dozens of other research projects that were primarily about obedience to authority.

 

A review of the way other prison researchers conduct their work might help indicate whether or not the way he went about things with his Stanford Prison Experiment was the right way to go. He claims that the reason he didn’t study people in current prisons was because they would have a hard time getting in and out of them without better cooperation from authorities and that they wouldn’t be able to observe everything. This is partially true. Both Dorothy Otnow Lewis and Lonnie Athens researched prison behavior and they had problems obtaining cooperation from authorities to conduct their interviews but they overcame them and things seem to have gotten easier for prison researchers in the late eighties and nineties. There appears to have been much more cooperation based on a review of the books about several mass murders and books by the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI. These improvements in cooperation escalated after 1971 when Philip Zimbardo did his research project. Philip Zimbardo could have gone about things in a different way that probably would have been much better if he was primarily interested in researching prison behavior but it is conceivable that he didn’t find out about that until after he did his experiment. Even though there were problems with studying activities there were also other problems with the way he went about it perhaps even more serious problems. His prisoners and guards weren’t real. They weren’t brought up in a criminal environment or trained as guards. There was no trial or many of the other activities that would have been relevant and important to researching prison life. He still could have and should have found out of the research done by others by the time he wrote The Lucifer Effect in 2007. If this was primarily about prison research you would have expected him to do much more to cite the work of other researchers to confirm his findings. There is very little of that in The Lucifer Effect except for a few token statements which are mostly accurate about general principles and some claims that some of the people went on to conduct more research in prisons but he doesn’t review their work. The Lucifer Effect spends much more time discussing research projects into methods that could be used to manipulate people than it does in discussing legitimate prison research. If this research is presented to the leaders and withheld from the public it may enable them to manipulate the public and lead them into wars against the best interest of the public. There are many cases within The Lucifer Effect where he confesses to manipulating people as part of the experiment. There are also some cases where this seems as much like a form of espionage as it does a research project into prisons. He says that the conditions of the experiment were that they could quit the experiment at any time if they chose. Later when many of them clearly indicated that they wanted to quit but didn’t come out and say it clearly that “I want to quit in accordance with the agreement” he ignored them and tried to coerce them to continue. He attempted to convince someone to inform on the other prisoners which could have been similar to a prison incident and he didn’t agree or at least not initially; perhaps if it went on longer it would have worked and he could have cut a deal with someone. He attempts to put what he refers to as a spy in their ranks when one prisoner is released as a replacement. This spy winds up sympathizing with the prisoner and doesn’t provide any “actionable intelligence”. The use of this term seems more like something the CIA would use than something an undercover cop would use; they would probably more likely to refer to it as evidence that could be used at trial. There is an incident where they are concerned that the prisoner released would come back and disrupt the experiment. They go to great lengths to prevent this. When one of the parents expresses concerns about his son he confesses to appealing to his “masculine pride” when he asks “Don’t you think your son can take it?” There is reference to a perceived conspiracy to use this experiment to find out how to imprison Viet Nam protesters after someone finds out the project is being funded by the ONR. This conspiracy theory is dismissed out of hand without explanation except that he claims he is opposed to the war so that isn’t the case. He makes no attempt to explain why a war protester is accepting money for research from the ONR or to explain why they would provide it if they couldn’t use it to help accomplish their goal. This doesn’t mean the conspiracy about them using the experiment to arrest people protesting the war is true; it almost certainly isn’t. However the experiment could be used to better understand how to run boot camps and manipulate people. Many of the activities they are conducting are similar to the activities that the CIA participate in and as some people including Alfred McCoy and Philip Zimbardo himself indicated it is similar to what went on at Abu Ghraib.

 

Philip Zimbardo claims that he changes his attitude after he is confronted by a younger research assistant whom he is also dating that raises concerns about the experiment. He initially claims he doubted whether or not she “could ever be a good researcher if she was going to get so emotional about a research procedure.” This statement may be valid from a scientific point of view; however from an ethical point of view it may be different. After she responds he later agrees to end the research project but he still goes on with a semi-mock procedure where a public defender related to one of the prisoners comes in and conducts interviews with the prisoners. He states that he will file reports with a real court on Monday. Only then does he tell the public defender and the prisoners that he is ending the experiment. After he ends the project he writes ”Then and there I vowed to use whatever power that I had for good and against evil, to promote what is best in people, to work to free people from their self imposed prisons, and to work against systems that pervert the promise of happiness and justice.” This sounds like something that people like Howard Zinn have attempted to do; however Howard Zinn seems to have been much more active in his attempt to achieve this goal and to the best of my knowledge he never mad such a dramatic statement; instead he demonstrated his sincerity with his actions. If you revue the work of Howard Zinn and other war protesters you will find much more activity to protest against wars than what I know of Philip Zimbardo; as far as I can tell his claims to be against the war were all vague general claims without addressing the problems of the war the way other war opponents that I’m aware of until recently. This seems to have changed with the writing of The Lucifer Effect and his opposition to the torture in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. For the most part his current work may be changing to a point. He is right that more people higher up should be held accountable for this scandal and that the situation is a major factor although it may not be quite as important as earlier upbringing as indicated by Philip Greven. However there are still some problems including the end of The Lucifer Effect where he tries to reinforce hero worship to a point and encourage people to be obedient to a benevolent authority in what he seems to refer to as a reverse Milgram experiment. The problem with Hero worship is that the most effective solutions aren’t dramatic or heroic they are mundane practical things that can be done to solve problems before they escalate. As indicated by Greven and many other researchers violence early in life leads to violence later in life; once you understand this than it indicates the way to solve this problem involves teaching young parents to avoid abuse and spanking instead to spend more time with their children doing little mundane things. This is hardly perceived as heroic yet it is an example of ways to solve problems. Heroism is often based far more on hype biases and lies than on practical solution. Once you have a hero they are often put above reproach and biases tend to escalate. A similar problem comes up when teaching people to be obedient to a benevolent authority since the authorities they have obeyed in the past have always portrayed themselves as benevolent and he doesn’t put more than a toke amount of focus how to recognize which authority is benevolent or not and setting up a set of checks and balances. Until there is a better education system and the masses do a better job learning for themselves to tell who is good or not there may be little choice but to encourage some people to obey authority; however if this is necessary there can still be more done to set up a set of checks and balanced controlled by educated people and set up a plan to educate the rest.

 

Philip Zimbardo also reviews the ethics of his own project; however he doesn’t focus much if any attention on what the research may be used for. He claims that from an absolute version of ethics the rule is first do no harm which he didn’t obey since he acknowledges that he did psychological damage to the subjects of his experiment. He also reviews a relative version of ethics which weighs whether society gains more than they lose from the experiment. This is based on the assumption that the people being used for the experiment will pay a price but if it goes well then the information gained from the experiment will more than justify the expense. There is no way of knowing for sure whether or not this will happen until after the experiment is done but that is what they are aiming for. This is based on the assumption that the research information gained from the experiment would benefit society instead of being used to harm society. The experiments that were committed by the third Reich were of course considered unethical because not only did they harm the research subject but they also were used to learn how to kill much more effectively. This is actually standard procedure for military research although it receives little attention. If the military produces a more powerful bomb they’re learning how to kill more efficiently. In the case of Philip Zimbardo’s experiment he is studying psychological manipulation tactics many of which were partially understood by a lot of demagogues. This could be used for better by warning the public, or worse by withholding the research from the public and providing it only to those who are using it to manipulate the public. Philip Zimbardo didn’t do either one of these instead he did something in between. There was some information shared with some members of the public but not the majority. This could give him some degree of plausible deniability. The information was much more widely available to the college educated and the members of the military and the CIA than it was the vast majority of the public. He would have had more plausible deniability if he had published a first edition of The Lucifer Effect in the seventies. This couldn’t have included research that hadn’t been done or any information about the incidents in Abu Ghraib since they hadn’t happened and perhaps if the public was warned they might never have happened. He could have followed it up with improved editions as more research became available. Instead he did a few TV shows and perhaps provided more detailed reports to those within the academic community. Philip Zimbardo for the most part ignores the ethics of how his research was used and even goes so far as to claim ignorance when it was used for the Navy’s Survival Evasion and Escape (SERE) program. The SERE program may have been used to develop methods to overcome resistance to torture as well as to develop it. Philip Zimbardo was doing this research project with a grant from the ONR he should have known or at least suspected it could be used for this purpose. Another aspect of his research which should have been considered more carefully was the fact that he relied on the help of research subjects who had a hard time paying for college. They were paid fifteen dollars a day which wasn’t very much for this type of research even in 1970. Like a lot of other researchers he relied primarily on the lower or middle classes for his research and the benefit was evaluated and controlled by the upper classes. Like participants in this research project, Stanley Milgram’s project and many others the people participating in the research were happy to know that the research was being done for the benefit of science which was presumably being used to help everyone in society. A closer look almost certainly will indicate that this is a false assumption. The benefit of this research project is controlled by those in the academic community, the most powerful political institutions and the Mass Media. Unfortunately in most cases especially this one the benefit is provided first to the rich with access to and education and then to a lesser degree to the public but the quality of the education the public as presented by the politicians and the Mass Media is routinely distorted and often involves indoctrination instead of education or insufficient review for the majority of the public to understand.

 

Philip Zimbardo was the president of the American Psychology Association in 2002 and is now director of the Stanford Center on Interdisciplinary Policy, Education and Research on Terrorism. This may mean he has some influence in the academic community and perhaps in the political community on how to deal with terrorism. His handling of this may be flawed as well; he cites a study of four hundred al-Queda members by Marc Sageman which claims that three quarters of these people came from the middle or the upper classes. This may be true but I suspect it may also be out of context. I don’t know for certain what all the contributing factors are that lead people to become what the USA labels as terrorists but I suspect that generally speaking two of the leading causes are indoctrination that includes coercion and some form of legitimate grievance although they may not be able to express it very well. The indoctrination could include child abuse early in life from those that raise them and mythology about Armageddon and the demonization of those they consider enemies. The legitimate grievance may be more difficult to recognize in some cases since we now have complex systems that control all the most powerful institution in the world which many people can’t comprehend. However they may see that the people that control the systems get the benefit and those that do a large portion of the work pay the price. They are aware of the collateral damage that is done by many sources including the USA military. The people living in the Middle East receive a different version of the news than the people in the USA; while the US media downplays the fact that the CIA has intervened in foreign countries to overthrow governments the people in the Middle East live with it and perhaps even exaggerate it in the other direction. The truth is almost certainly somewhere in the middle and a truth commission that sorts through the details to get it may help reduce violence than ignoring inconvenient facts. Philip Zimbardo doesn’t seem to do much to acknowledge many of the legitimate grievances except for the torture which is now so obvious it should be beyond dispute.

 

Philip Zimbardo displays more familiarity with the CIA and their activities than he does with prison psychology. This doesn’t mean he always presents them accurately though. Even if it turns out that Philip Zimbardo is sincere it is worth considering the possibility that if there is reform there will be someone involved that may have an ulterior motive and they may attempt to subvert the process one way or another. Even if Philip Zimbardo isn’t entirely sincere it wouldn’t be appropriate to dismiss his work in its entirety either; when it comes to manipulation tactics some of the people who understand them the most are those who have used them in the past. A close look at Mien Kampf indicates that Hitler understood war propaganda and manipulation tactics better than the vast majority of the public but it also requires discretion while sorting out the details; for example when he describes manipulation tactics he attributed them to the enemies including the WWI opponents, the Catholics and of course the Jews. In the case WWI opponents and the Catholics he was at least partly right but in the case of the Jews they didn’t have the power and there is little or nothing to indicate they were a legitimate threat at that time. Instead he was of course catering to the prejudices of his followers perhaps because this was the most effective way to manipulate them. Another thing worth considering is the fact that although many people may not have the critical thinking skills to recognize his flaws others clearly do and Philip Zimbardo may know this. If that is the case why wouldn’t he do a better job manipulating the public and why would he provide so much information about how to avoid manipulation tactics? One seemingly farfetched possibility is that this may be for some people another obedience to authority experiment and a partially controlled disclosure plan. As time goes on more people will come to learn how to understand these principles and they may realize that Philip Zimbardo isn’t being completely sincere. This would enable some members of the public to cope with the truth gradually. Believing this hypothesis without further evidence would be foolish but even if it isn’t true it may work out that way in the long run. If there is a truth commission it will help to learn how to sort through the details and check facts and the public should be involved in that. There will almost certainly be some people who don’t come out with the truth unless they realize they have no choice and it is in their own best interest. Many members of the public may also have to do a better job dealing with the fact that their leaders haven’t been nearly as honest with them as the public wants to believe. Many members of the public have developed an emotional attachment with some of their leaders and an emotional distrust of others and in some cases they may not have gotten either one right. A truth Commission may have to do as much to de-cultify many people as it does to educate them.

 

Informing the public of these indoctrination or manipulation tactics needs to be a very important part of a truth commission so they can learn ho to avoid being taken in again and led to one war after another for the wrong reasons. If Philip Zimbardo had done a much better job organizing his research and presenting it to the public thirty years ago then much more could have been done to prevent the wars that have occurred since then. The fact that this didn’t happen can’t be changed so it will be important to do it now in the most effective way possible and even though Philip Zimbardo probably hasn’t as sincere as he could have been he could still make partial amends by helping to educate the public now if his work is checked. If he is called out and punished to severely when he was coming out with at least part of the truth and an important part then others may be reluctant to follow suit. Whether Philip Zimbardo or others like him disserve some form of immunity may not be the most important issue but whether or not it is the most effective way of getting the truth out and reforming the system without a revolution that “eats its own children”.

 

 

 

This may seem farfetched but it is worth considering. The CIA has released an enormous amount of information about their activities over the years intentionally or not. It may be difficult to sort it all out but there are dozens of books by members of the CIA and investigators of the CIA that have been released; if this information is organized in the most effective way possible it will help understand what they’ve been doing and why. One possibility worth considering is that they want a truth commission of some sort to avoid self destruction. This wouldn’t mean they’ve been working in the best interest of the public as some of them would have us believe but it may still be in the best interest of the public to participate. Some of the information released by the CIA is clearly not trustworthy. This is beyond doubt since there are many cases where one person says one thing and another contradicts him. Clearly when this happens one of them must be wrong. Another thing worth considering is the fact that according to Victor Marchetti the CIA has been keeping a library that includes a secret history of the CIA. If this is true then this should be made available to the public. The CIA may prefer to do this in a controlled manner not only to protect themselves but to avoid additional wars. They haven’t been reliable in the past when it comes to avoiding wars but that doesn’t mean we should rush into a situation that will do little or no better. It may also be in the public’s best interest to release this in a manner that is peaceful; however the control of the disclosure should be handed over to those that have been more sincere in the past as soon as possible. Once the public learns how to handle it better they should receive the control over the way the system is run.

 

If it isn’t possible to work out the details for some of the most important institutions it may help to start with a limited example while the details of the rest are being worked out. One possible example could be a truth commission about the abuse that has happened at many reform schools. One reason why this may work out well is that if this does happen first it will give a psychologist the opportunity to educate the public about the damage that can be done by severe abuse early in life and how it could lead to more violence later in life. This is one of the most important subjects that the public needs to be educated about. By explaining this sooner rather than later then we can get a head start cutting back on child abuse which has a lot of long term effects. One of the reasons why it may be easier to start this is simply that they have less political power than many of the other institutions. This may not sound like the right way to choose the order but ultimately this will inevitably happen and in this case since it is so important it may be a good idea to do it anyway. Ideally it would be better to give more political power to the majority as effectively as possible but if it leads to violence it should be considered carefully. One problem with this is that it is very close to the scandal with the Catholic Church. There is already a growing amount of pressure on them so hopefully they will cooperate sooner rather than later. If there is excessive resistance from one source but we can work with another for simple practical reasons it is better to get started rather than do nothing. Once this happens pressure could increase on the institutions that resist, preferable peacefully.

 

Another thing that needs to be considered carefully is reparations or partial reparations for the public. If we exposed the fact that a white collar criminal stole millions of dollars from the public would it be considered acceptable to let him off and let him keep his money? Of course not. A truth commission may involve little or no jail time for many people but when it comes to reparations it should be a different thing and if it isn’t handled that way from the beginning then once the truth starts coming out it will become increasingly obvious that the public has been robbed of billions if not trillions from the highest classes. In fact to those who check the most reliable sources this is already obvious. When setting the terms of a truth commission it may be necessary to allow some people to have keep minimum of their funds for survival or enable them to find some way to earn there way honestly and of course there should be precautions to make sure that the people making the reparations really are the right ones responsible for the white collar crimes. It should be kept in mind that one of the highest priorities should be setting up systems that make sure these problems don’t happen again. This should involve a complete review of the capitalist system without the coercive tactics used in the McCarthy era or when the American Protection League was active. Instead there should be a rational review that checks and double checks the details and explains them to the public. At some point it may be necessary to consider whether it will be more important to provide education for children or reparations for older people. Ideally we would have both but if we can’t have them both at the same time it would be important to consider the fact that although children have much less political power investing in them is much more productive in the long run.

 

A true reform system should provide better education for all those that are capable of learning one way or another. Modern technology is providing ways to educate people in a much more efficient manner since computers can be used to make copies of books and newspapers at minimal expense. Unfortunately instead of reducing the cost of education it is going up partly due to copyright laws and other rules that provide unnecessary obstacles to educating the poor and the middle classes. Copyright laws have turned into a form of corporate welfare that protects the rich and enables them to control the way information is distributed. Without paying the owner of that information the public can’t have access to the information they need to make important decisions about how to run our government. In some case this is even subsidized with tax payer money that helps to support research that is later copy written by private corporations. Both the Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment were done with the help of public grants but the information was copy written by private corporations. If the public finances something they should have access to it especially if it is about manipulation tactics that could be and probably are being used against them. John Nichols and Robert McChesney have both argued that the increase in the length of the copy write laws should be repealed perhaps to the original 14/14 law where they would have an initial copy write for 14 years which could be extended an additional 14 years for a maximum of 28 years. They also cite a recommendation by Dean Baker where people could deduct $100 from their taxes for a charity which could be the author of research work on the condition that the work provided with this money becomes part of the public domain without copy writing it. This wasn’t intended to be the final solution but they did this to encourage others to try to come up with other ideas to replace the current system. One way to amend this would be that the public could use several ways of raising money to buy the copyrights of an important piece of work including Baker’s suggestion and for every $100 dollars raised a certain amount of time could be knocked off the copyright period for any given book. This could enable a new book similar to Carl Sagan’s Cosmos to be available free online much sooner.

 

In addition to reforming unfair copyright laws the way we fund education needs to be reformed. Education was initially presented to the public when the corporations found that uneducated people couldn’t operate machines without enough education. Since then the corporations and religious institutions have always had an unfair amount of control over the education system. Part of this problem is the fact that most if not all schools are funded by property taxes and the wages have never been as fair as the corporations have indicated. In order to allow the lower classes to have a sincere chance to participate in a democratic society and climb the economic ladder they need a fair chance at an equal education which the current system doesn’t provide. Some versions of Communism or Socialism have attempted to provide a better education system for the middle or lower classes although they haven’t always succeeded. This doesn’t mean we should adopt this form of system but it is worth reconsidering especially since despite the capitalist propaganda the current system isn’t providing more than a minimum amount of effort to educate the poor. Instead they provide a lot of propaganda to demonize communism and socialism, glorify capitalism without actually taking a close look at the details. If they are right and capitalism is as good ads they claim they shouldn’t have any objection to a close look at the details without appeals to emotions and distorting the data in either direction.

 

It is also worth considering that we have a similar problem with the environment with capitalism. The current form of capitalism provides little protection to the environment except when there is an enormous amount of political support for it. Recently some advocates for capitalism including Glen Beck have cited some examples of how capitalism has repaired the environment in some parts of the USA to indicate that the market works. The problem is these improvements weren’t implemented by the market; instead they were implemented over the opposition of businesses. These improvements are very rare and for every one case where there has been improvement due to the political power of the locals there are many more locations that have undergone much more environmental damage especially in third world countries where war is the norm partially because of the support of multi-national corporations for dictator’s who are abusing their own people and environment. The environmental damage may eventually reach a point of no return but unlike the movies it almost certainly won’t be a clearly defined point of no return where a hero can come in at the last second and save the day. I doubt if we have reached that point of no return and I have no way of knowing when or if we will but there clearly appears to be an enormous amount o0f evidence to indicate that un regulated capitalism can’t turn things around. We need an educated public that can participate in real solutions that help everyone not just the rich and a truth and education commission could help do that.

 

For links to the American Empire Project and Free Press see the following:

 

http://www.americanempireproject.com/

http://www.freepress.net/ 

 

To read about the Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo (discretion advised as indicated above) see:

 

http://www.lucifereffect.com/ 

 

For another critical review of the Lucifer Effect see:

 

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4102

 

For web page information about the “Dark Alliance” series see:

 

http://www.narconews.com/darkalliance/drugs/start.htm

 

To search for information or lack of information about the “Dark Alliance” series at the San Jose Mercury News see:

 

http://www.mercurynews.com/

 

For the full HTML version of this blog with table of context see:

 

https://zakherys.tripod.com/nonviolence.htm