Tag: Vietnam War

Only Adult Children Still Believe U.S. Propaganda

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

by Edward Curtin

It should now be quite clear to any reasonable person that the Biden administration is hell-bent on destroying Russia and will risk nuclear war in doing so. It has already started World War III with its use of Ukraine to light the final match. The problem is that reasonable people are in very short supply, and, as Ray McGovern recently wrote in “Brainwashed for War with Russia, the Biden administration and their media lackeys

Only Adult Children Still Believe U.S. Propaganda

Peace Train: Silencing contrarian voices

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

In the U.S., we proudly point to the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights that was adopted in 1791.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Peace Train: Silencing contrarian voices

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U.S. Wars and Hostile Actions (WW2 – 2014)

The American Colony of Thailand

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

President Harry S. Truman helped transform the wartime OSS into a permanent government department known as the CIA in 1947. Without massive American wartime budgets, the newly established CIA wanted other sources of funding, and the opium trade could help. As a result, the CIA quickly organized its first coup by overthrowing the government of Thailand. It used profits from the opium trade to bribe Thai generals to transform Thailand into an American colony whose army was expanded and equipped to provide troops for American military adventures.

The American Colony of Thailand via Tales of the American Empire

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The Origin of Student Debt: Reagan Adviser Warned Free College Would Create a Dangerous “Educated Proletariat”

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

The Origin of Student Debt: Reagan Adviser Warned Free College Would Create a Dangerous “Educated Proletariat”

In 1970, Ronald Reagan was running for reelection as governor of California. He had first won in 1966 with confrontational rhetoric toward the University of California public college system and executed confrontational policies when in office. In May 1970, Reagan had shut down all 28 UC campuses in the midst of student protests against the Vietnam War and the U.S. bombing of Cambodia. On October 29, less than a week before the election, his education adviser Roger A. Freeman spoke at a press conference to defend him.

Freeman’s remarks were reported the next day in the San Francisco Chronicle under the headline “Professor Sees Peril in Education.” According to the Chronicle article, Freeman said, “We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat. … That’s dynamite! We have to be selective on who we allow [to go to college].”

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In retrospect, this period was the clear turning point in America’s policies toward higher education. For decades, there had been enthusiastic bipartisan agreement that states should fund high-quality public colleges so that their youth could receive higher education for free or nearly so. That has now vanished. In 1968, California residents paid a $300 yearly fee to attend Berkeley, the equivalent of about $2,000 now. Now tuition at Berkeley is $15,000, with total yearly student costs reaching almost $40,000.

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That brings us to today. Biden’s actions, while positive, are merely a Band-Aid on a crisis 50 years in the making. In 1822, founding father James Madison wrote to a friend that “the liberal appropriations made by the Legislature of Kentucky for a general system of Education cannot be too much applauded. … Enlightened patriotism … is now providing for the State a Plan of Education embracing every class of Citizens.”

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance,” Madison explained, “and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” Freeman and Reagan and their compatriots agreed with Madison’s perspective but wanted to prevent Americans from gaining this power. If we want to take another path, the U.S. will have to recover a vision of a well-educated populace not as a terrible threat, but as a positive force that makes the nation better for everyone — and so should largely be paid for by all of us.