JON RAPPOPORT LIVE IN SANTA MONICA

If you are anywhere near Los Angeles, this is an invitation to a free event I’ll be doing on Saturday, July 17.  Details are below.

Gerry Fialka is an old friend from the 1990s.  He is a brilliant artist, as well as a creator and organizer of events.  He’ll be interviewing me about my work in a relaxed setting.  Gerry does great in-depth interviews.  We’ll cover a variety of subjects.  With Gerry, you can never predict the course of a conversation, but you can be sure he’ll make it interesting.

Here’s the press release on the event:    

Sat, July 17 at 3pm: A former writer for LA Weekly, JON RAPPOPORT has worked as an investigative reporter exposing medical fraud for 20 years. He is also a painter and a musician. The author of The Secret Behind Secret Societies, he is working on a new book, The Magician Awakes.  Gerry Fialka will interview Jon about this forthcoming book.    

THE UNURBAN is proud to host MESS (Media Ecology Soul Salon) at 3301 Pico Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90404, 310-315-0056, free admission, Info: 310-306-7330 – The public is invited to these engaging interviews by Gerry Fialka with modern thinkers who’ll address the metaphysics of their callings and the nitty-gritty of their crafts. http://www.laughtears.com/mess.html

contact: gerry fialka pfsuzy@aol.com, 310-306-7330 http://www.laughtears.com/

JON RAPPOPORT

www.nomorefakenews.com

LOGIC COURSE TESTIMONIAL

JUNE 24, 2010.  Recently, I received a note from Karen J, who lives in the Miami area and home schools her children.

Karen ordered my course, LOGIC AND ANALYSIS, mastered the materials, and then taught the 18-lesson curriculum to her kids.

I think you’ll be interested in what she has to say.

“First of all, Jon, you should know I took the home school route because I didn’t want my children to be subjected to ‘social training’ in public schools.  I had no confidence that the values of teachers in that system would reflect the values that are important in our family.

“But when I started home schooling the kids, I realized pretty quickly that I was basically teaching them the same academic materials they would have been getting in public school.

“I didn’t have a big problem with this, but I felt there was something missing.  I wanted my children to have strength of mind.  I wished I had course materials that would help them achieve that.

“When I say ‘strength of mind,’ I mean values, and also something else.  I didn’t know exactly what that was, until I began reading your articles about logic.  You mentioned having tools to separate rational from irrational arguments.  That appealed to me very much.

“I want my kids to be able to do more than parrot information they read or hear.  You’ve given me a way to help them analyze information and see the flaws in it.

“When your course arrived, I studied the teacher’s manual from beginning to end.  I was very pleased to see that you offered detailed explanations about the passages of text that contained logical errors.

I was even happier that the passages you wrote really did resemble news articles and other information people would actually encounter in life.

“When I felt I was ready, I began teaching the course to my children.  It only took a short while to notice that their eyes were opening to a whole new way to think about information.  It wasn’t a grind.  The kids were enthusiastic about learning.

“In one of your articles, you mentioned that logic could be a great adventure.  Well, that’s what it’s turning out to be.  The kids are doing outside work on their own.  They’re taking articles from newspapers and breaking them down and finding the logical flaws.

“My children are going on to college, and I feel very confident that they’ll be able to stay ahead of the game in every course they take.  They’ve learned how to be pro-active.  They like their other courses now because they can apply logic to them.  This is a big change.  Before, they were competent, but not excited.

“I also can report that my own mental acuity has improved.  I used to feel that information was like a high tide coming at me.  Now, I’m more balanced.  I can focus better.  I read an article and I take an active interest in evaluating the material.  I have the tools to do it.

“When I studied the teacher’s manual for your course, I found out many interesting and important things, but the one factor that really got me going was your CD.  To listen to you take apart the six core passages in the course and reveal the logical flaws in them was a real confidence-builder.  I saw how it could be done.  It affirmed my own sense that a great deal of information is shoddy, even though it appears convincing.  Before, this was just an intuition on my part.  Now, I know whys and wherefores.  That old saying, “The devil is in the details,” is true.  I’m very confident I can deal with information with this new logical approach.  It works and it pays off.  That’s the best thing I can say about it.”

Feel free to make inquiries about my LOGIC AND ANALYSIS  course: qjrconsulting@gmail.com

JON RAPPOPORT

www.nomorefakenews.com

BP, THE GREEN COMPANY

TAKING A BULLET FOR A GREEN WORLD

JUNE 22, 2010.  This piece is my follow-up on Timothy Carney’s article at www.washingtonexaminer.com

“Once a government pet, BP now a capitalist tool.” 

Carney lays out a case that BP wants a cap and trade bill from the US federal government for good reasons.  All the reasons are called Profit.  $$.

(In other words, the oil-spewing giant is an environmentalist in the same way that Al Gore makes a living off of global warming.)

Carney points out that BP is pushing for an energy bill that would include:

government subsidies for converting coal plants to natural gas—and BP is a major producer of natural gas;

a higher fed tax on gasoline at the pump—the tax revenues would be funneled into building highways, and highways equal more drivers buying more gasoline;

government subsidies for solar energy production—BP is invested in solar and has a project going in Argentina.

Not in the energy bill, but part of the picture, is a US- bank subsidized pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Ceyhan, Turkey.

My point is this.  When corporate giants decide to back a major piece of legislation like this, they PUT TOGETHER A PACKAGE.  They figure out their future profits as carefully as they can.  Along all fronts.  In other words, they operate like insurance actuaries, who balance the total of incoming premium payments against what they estimate the company will have to pay out in claims.

So these profit-making items BP is lobbying for, as part of the “green revolution,” are all tied together in their profit forecasts.  They see where they will absorb some losses and make some gains, and they calculate the overall outcome.  They are optimistic.

If Obama’s cap and trade bill passes, the total amount of oil used in the US will decline over time, but the price of oil and gasoline will rise.  Again, how does that shake out for BP?  How high will the price of oil and gasoline have to escalate, in order for BP to make, on balance, the kind of profit they are looking for?

You can bet BP has come up with a number, and BP also knows what Obama’s number is—and the two parties aren’t separated by much. 

BP also understands that this number—and cap and trade, in general—are part of an overall strategy moving toward a globalist planet.  In order to impose all sorts of controls on carbon-based industry, the US government will be running the country to a much greater degree than it now is.  And this power will be linked to the planet-wide agenda to down-regulate industry and “go green” and break the back of the free market everywhere and drive people further below the level of what was formerly known as the middle class.  That’s the globalist picture.

BP aren’t idiots.  They see the handwriting on the wall.  They are doing some of the writing.

Globalism for BP is a balancing act.  How far down the economic scale can people all over the world be driven—and still BP turns a handsome profit selling gas and oil and solar?

The recent Gulf spill disaster comes at an opportune time.  Obama and others are playing it like a drum, to push the need for the cap and trade bill and “the green clean economy.”

You can find additional evidence about possible manipulation and coordination of events leading up to the BP well explosion at www.infowars.com.

Remaining in the wings are a few questions.  Does BP believe the world supply of oil is running out?  If so (rightly or wrongly), they would certainly be looking for a way to reduce total production while still making huge profits.  Under the aegis of “the great shift to green energy,” forcefully controlled by cooperating governments, BP would be able to do just that: reduce production, still make huge profits. 

On the other hand, if BP perceives a different picture—oil is more abundant than anyone realizes—they have significant motivation to cover up that fact, in order to head off cheap oil—and again, a forced shift to green energies would fit that scenario quite well for them.

How much money is BP going to have to fork over to fulfill their perceived obligations vis-à-vis the Gulf oil spill?  Another as yet unanswered question.  Some people are speculating that the company might have to declare bankruptcy.  At the moment, my prediction is that BP will survive to live another day.  If bankruptcy becomes obligatory—“we fall on our sword for the common good”—the company will be rebuilt under a different name and continue to operate.  The services they provide are not going to go away. 

In the most extreme view of this whole situation, BP can sacrifice themselves for the cause of Green Globalism (i.e., global de facto control), they can permit an op whereby their gigantic oil well blows up, they can then “suffer a shameful defeat,” but still actually WIN. 

“Yes, boys, we had to bite the bullet on this one, we had to let the well explode and suffer all the consequences, because we needed a crisis that would provoke a major step forward toward green fascism and the New Age.  This was the part we had to play.  Think of it as a kind of ritual.  But we’ve calculated all the numbers, we know the future, and the future is going to be good.  We will rise again, under the banner of Central Planning for the World, and I gotta tell you, it’s going to be roses all the way.  Wait and see.  You’re gonna love it.”

JON RAPPOPORT

www.nomorefakenews.com

OBAMA FAILS IN THE GULF

AND A BLUEPRINT FOR EXECUTIVE ACTION

By Jon Rappoport

Author of the LOGIC AND ANALYSIS COURSE

qjrconsulting@gmail.com

JUNE 21, 2010.  There are certain things an executive should know.  One of the first is: PEOPLE WORKING UNDER YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE MISTAKES.  AND IN A SEVERE CRISIS THAT DEMANDS FAST ACTION, THOSE MISTAKES ARE GOING TO BE MAGNIFIED.

This is especially true in a mega-corporation or massive government, because the executive sits on top of numerous departments and agencies and thousands of people.  

A corollary to the first principle is: PEOPLE WORKING UNDER YOU ARE GOING TO FIGHT AND HAGGLE WITH EACH OTHER.

This is particularly true when the regulations that determine which agencies or departments are responsible for which situations are muddled. 

We are seeing this in the Gulf.  As in—who is in charge? 

The goals are clear.  Stop the spill.  Clean up the sea.  Bring financial relief to the affected.  But who is actually running the show?

An experienced executive with real eyes moves fast.  At the first sign of major trouble—which in the case of the oil spill was perhaps two days—the executive swings into action.

He lets everyone know that NOTHING is going to get in the way of effective action.  No silly rules or petty jealousies or chain-of-command nonsense.

Within hours, he learns what regulations or outside special interests might derail the operation, and he cancels those regulations for the moment and he knocks special interests down. 

For example, if the unions are complaining that foreign ships shouldn’t be coming into help clean up the sea, he squashes that like a hammer on a raw egg.

He demands, on day one, a briefing about which agencies are involved in the Gulf operation, and he sorts them out—he heads off and cuts any red tape and decides who is running the show and who is following in the rear.  RIGHT NOW.

Because he ALREADY knows that endless haggling and delay is the culture of any huge group.  He knows that.  He doesn’t figure it out a month after the fact.  He doesn’t act like a rank amateur.

The executive accepts help from any direction.  Local barges that want to suck up oil from the water, and huge Dutch vessels outfitted to suck up much larger amounts of oil—bring them in.  IMMEDIATELY. 

Those Dutch vessels scoop up tons of seawater and oil, filter out most of the oil and store it, and spew the water back into the sea.  Yes, some oil will go back into the sea.  There is an EPA regulation that forbids putting ANY oil from a ship into the sea?  Suspend that regulation now.  [Thanks to Larry Walker, Jr. for this information.] 

Every action I’ve mentioned so far in this piece takes place within two days of learning that the oil spill is gigantic.

Substantive meetings with the CEO of BP and governors of affected states?  Right away.  And no stupid photo ops and milk shakes.

This isn’t Obama’s style?  CHANGE YOUR STYLE, PAL.

Of course, Obama isn’t the only executive in the world who acts like a diffident dolt.  There are many.  They feel much better at a distance from actual work.  They like to appoint study groups and task forces.  They spend their time thinking about how they should construct their little speeches. 

Forget executives for the moment.  I believe any normal human being, appointed or elected to a job where thousands and thousands of people in various departments are operating under him, would feel nervous right off the bat.  On day one.  What are all these people doing?  What could they do to screw things up?  What are they already doing to screw things up?

And when a crisis hits, how will they screw things up even worse?  Because you know they will.  That’s the nature of big organizations in a crisis.  Left to their own devices, they’ll play “cover my ass” and play kiddie games with red tape.

But people like Obama don’t get that, or if they do, they avoid thinking about it.  They stay in the shadows and let things go.

What about all the people whose jobs and lives have already been hurt in this oil-spill crisis?  A real executive can have a system up and running in 48 hours to start reimbursing those people—with BP footing the bill.  The system may not be perfect right away, but it can offer some relief.

Contrary to what some people want to believe, all this isn’t brain surgery.  Actually, it’s just common sense.

When it comes to capping the flow of oil at the source, a real executive will assert every ounce of his power to find and bring in the best pros in the world NOW to offer solutions.  And the real executive will be in the room for the discussions.  He won’t be waiting for a report.  He’ll be the DRIVING FORCE.   

The president wants very good people to tell him what the long-range damage will look like.  How much oil will be eaten by bacteria in the sea?  How soon?  Sure, he can’t get a complete handle on this right away, but he can come across and let the American people know what he knows.

He can get on television in the first 24 hours and shoot straight from the shoulder.  He can tell the public everything he’s doing.  He can provide ongoing updates and act strong because he is strong.

You’ll think I’m crazy for what I’m about to say.  When I used to work in a college library, I was in charge of several teenagers and twentysomethings who were handling materials and student needs.  Within a week of their hiring, I realized these kids were absolute aces.  It took them three days to know more about the library than I did.  They worked faster and better than I did.  In terms of sheer ability and fearlessness and common sense and results, I would put up any one of those kids against what Obama has done.  I KNOW they could be handling the BP spill better than Obama has.

Every US president seems to be shocked and dismayed and befuddled when a crisis happens that requires many agencies of the government to step in and perform.

WE know the result is going to be sick joke.  But the president doesn’t. 

In terms of sheer executive ability, I really believe we’ve been electing morons.  Disabled, slow-motion morons.

In another operation—Afghanistan—it is becoming increasingly apparent that US troops are fighting with stones around their necks.  Engagements with the enemy on the ground are subject to severe restrictions.  Is there the slightest possibility of harming nearby civilians?  If so, US soldiers must resort to light weapons.

The bigger issue here—and this also comes under the heading of executive leadership (Obama)—concerns the reasons we are there in the first place. 

AN EXECUTIVE MUST REMAIN CLEAR ABOUT THE OVERALL GOAL.

Supposedly, after 9/11, the US invaded Afghanistan to wipe out terrorist enclaves.  To what degree this meant the Taliban was always vague.  In the process, we have taken on the role of nation building, and this role has become the centerpiece of Obama’s strategy.

After six months of meetings and conferences with his best advisors, the new circumspect president signed off on a plan to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people—in a nation that isn’t a nation but instead is a collection of separate tribes and clans and warlords, most of whom are remote from, and opposed to, the American-supported Afghan central government.

But no problem.  We’re going to solve the age-old situation in 18 months.

And again, why?  To root out and destroy terrorist enclaves?  We’re going to re-structure an entire nation that isn’t a nation so we can search out and wipe out terrorists?

This is called a non-sequitur.  And the consequence for US soldiers is an escalation of deaths and casualties.

I’m sorry.  The executive in charge (Obama) is living in a different universe.

He took six months to come up with a plan that had no chance of success.

JON RAPPOPORT

www.nomorefakenews.com

Jon Rappoport has been working as an investigative reporter for 25 years.  Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize early in his career, he has published articles in LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, CBS Healthwatch, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe.  He has taught in several private schools in New York and Los Angeles, and has tutored extensively in remedial English at Santa Monica College.  At Amherst College, where he graduated with a BA in philosophy, he studied formal logic under Joseph Epstein, a revered professor of philosophy.  He can be reached at qjrconsulting@gmail.com for inquiries about his course, LOGIC AND ANALYSIS.      

FOURTH OPEN LETTER TO HOME SCHOOLERS

By Jon Rappoport

Author of the LOGIC AND ANALYSIS COURSE

qjrconsulting@gmail.com for inquiries about the course.

JUNE 21, 2010.  These days, I’m coming across a phenomenon I call The Disconnected Mind more frequently.

In its most extreme form, it goes this way.  I write a piece on the American Republic, and someone sends me an email that begins: “Yes, limited government is the foundation of the Republic.  The oil spill is on the news all the time.  I live in Michigan.  I wish I had a dog.  The government can’t afford to fix the potholes…”

What?  Excuse me?  Time out!      

There are other forms of The Disconnected Mind.  The most pervasive type stems from high school and college education.  The student steps out into the world and quickly realizes he doesn’t have a clue about the way things work.  All that education, and it seems to vanish behind him like vapor.

In this shaky situation, a young person gropes around for something to cling to.  He encounters all sorts of quasi-philosophy and political propaganda—delivered by people who appear quite sure of themselves. 

How does a newly minted adult assemble his attitude toward his own future?  How does he fend off propaganda? 

He’s missing one great asset.  He can’t analyze information and separate the wheat from the chaff. 

He thought he could back in school, but that turned out to be an illusion. 

He’s paralyzed. 

Part of the fault can be laid at the door of political correctness.  The material he dealt with in school was sanitized and scrubbed.  Any sentence that might have remotely offended some group was eliminated from text books.

He was operating in a pleasant abstract vacuum and he didn’t really know it.  Now he pays the price.

It turns out that information comes in all shapes and sizes.  Some of it drifts in on the breeze and some of it is launched from propaganda guns at high velocity. 

A lot of it is disjointed.  It contains holes that reflect the state of mind of the author.  No one can really make sense out of it, because it wasn’t written to make sense.  It was written to persuade. 

In the end, most people surrender.  They stagger under a particular umbrella of information, and they stop thinking.  They consider themselves lucky because they’ve gotten out of the rain.

In retrospect, their prized education was almost worthless.  It was, at best, a huge waste of time.

All in all, I would say the most egregious problem people have with information is this: they can’t follow a train of thought.  They can’t see there is “connective tissue” between several sequential ideas.  They believe it’s all right to plug into an article at any point and see if they agree with what’s being said.

To grasp this state of affairs, imagine a person who gets on a train while it’s moving.  He isn’t aware that the train started somewhere, will make certain stops, and end up at a terminal destination.  He just jumps on.

The consequence?  He winds up at a place he didn’t intend to.  He comes to believe this is the journey of life.  You arrive at a place and you get used to it.  Other people say it’s a good place, so you buy into that.

There is another way.

It starts with a thorough course in logic.  The student learns he can analyze information and see the flaws.  He can dig into the logic and illogic of an argument its author is trying to make.  He can follow a train of thought—or if there isn’t one, he can recognize its absence.

He’s strong.  He doesn’t wilt in front of propaganda and PR.

A long time ago, our society lost its moorings.  It’s now floating on open water, and it’s being invaded by polemic.  Polemic is argument whose total intent is to convince the audience to agree to something.  It doesn’t matter how.  Quite often, the strategy involves stimulating fear.  Fear sells.  It stirs people up.  It makes them buy an idea they’d never entertain under normal circumstances. 

Logic is polemic protection.  It’s a type of insurance policy that yields long-term benefits.  Logic confers immunity from intimidation tactics and intentionally garbled reasoning.

It also delivers immunity from the cult of personality, where the charisma of the speaker puts people in a trance.  (When I was a child, Senator Hubert Humphrey spoke in our town.  My parents took me to see him.  Those were the days when Hubert was at the top of his game.  He lectured for close to two hours, and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.  The man was a spellbinder.  I walked out of there agreeing with everything he said, and, curiously, I remembered very little of what he said.)

Education can produce strong, independent, and courageous minds.  A thorough grounding in logic is essential to arriving at that place.

Jon Rappoport has been working as an investigative reporter for 25 years.  Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize early in his career, he has published articles in LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, CBS Healthwatch, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe.  He has taught in several private schools in New York and Los Angeles, and has tutored extensively in remedial English at Santa Monica College.  At Amherst College, where he graduated with a BA in philosophy, he studied formal logic under Joseph Epstein, a revered professor of philosophy.  He can be reached at qjrconsulting@gmail.com for inquiries about his course, LOGIC AND ANALYSIS.      

THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC

A GREAT PLAN BECOMES A DISTRACTION

By Jon Rappoport

Author of the LOGIC AND ANALYSIS COURSE

qjrconsulting@gmail.com

JUNE 19, 2010. In front of a small group, I once offered this as an example of illogical reasoning:

PREMISE:  The sun is hot.

PREMISE:  Postcards are made out of paper.

CONCLUSION:  A Cadillac is a smart purchase.

One person in the group tried to argue that this made sense.  He invoked some version of Quantum Theory.  Another person said a Cadillac IS a smart purchase; therefore, the chain of reasoning was valid. 

The state of education in America… 

As every student of logic knows, a chain of reasoning begins with premises, also known as assumptions or first principles. 

Then you argue your case and, down the line, you come to conclusions.

The problem is, there are few students of logic around these days.  Therefore, a great deal of argument centers around lesser issues.

What do I mean by lesser issues?

Picture a bunch of football players who’ve forgotten the rules of the game battling with each other at the 50-yard line.  Nobody advances the ball.  Nobody tries to score a touchdown because nobody remembers what a touchdown is.  And people who watch this pitched battle at midfield argue about the tactics being employed.

Can three players jump on the back of an opponent, or only two?  Is it all right to bribe an opponent right there with a briefcase full of cash, or should that transaction take place under the stands before the game?  Can a player cruise around the 50-yard line in a golf cart and throw cans of red paint at the other team?

The grisly entertainment that is the White House and the Congress and the Supreme Court is all about this sort of infighting—and very few remember the assumptions and first principles…in other words, THE CONSTITUTION.

That’s a thing of the past, a quaint and interesting document for simpler times and simpler people.

However, if one did, in fact, remember the Constitution and what is says, most bills that come before Congress would prompt immediate outrage. Legislators would say:

“We can’t consider this!  It’s illegal!  The federal government has no right to debate this.  The proposal in this bill violates our system of limited government.  We have no power to act on this.”

At this point in our history, you would expect many spirited and profound debates in Washington about limited government and what it means, what it implies, what it allows, and what it doesn’t allow.

You would expect truly vital and lengthy debates about the expanding power of the federal government versus the implications of the Constitution.

I’m not talking about shouting matches.  I’m talking about open public debate, starting from the assumptions of the Constitution.  I’m talking about politicians who are prepared to make their arguments.

There are, of course, reasons why these debates are not taking place.  One reason?  Few people know how to make a logical case anymore. 

They don’t understand how it’s done.

They don’t understand, for example, that you need to state the assumptions of the Constitution, instead of merely glossing over them.  In a real argument, you have to reveal the premises that are the starting point for the argument.

Then you move on and, for example, cite instances where the federal government has acted to support these assumptions—or has contravened them. 

Eventually, people would see who is supporting the Constitution and who is effectively ignoring or denying that document.

Those who deny it would be forced to make an additional case explaining their denial.  Call me old-fashioned, but I think this part of the proceeding would be far more entertaining than watching football players throw cans of paint at each other. 

As many of us know, the “anti-Constitution” people make vague references to an “evolving interpretation” of the Founding Document.

Well, let’s hear that doctrine spelled out in detail.  Let’s get a chance to understand the full meaning of this argument.  Let’s discover how the principle of limited government can morph into a government that employs millions of people and intrudes into every corner of society—with force as its ultimate backup.

I think logic would start to make a comeback.  I think people would dimly begin to remember what logic is all about and why it can be so useful. 

I think many people would realize that the Constitution has been used to rationalize an avalanche of departures from the Constitution—and if that sounds like a contradiction, voila.  You’ve just made a foray into the very heart of logic. 

Perhaps the next step would be a complete “mock court” re-writing of the Founding Document, a re-writing that would show what we have actually been following all these years.

That strategy actually has a name.  It’s called reductio ad absurdum, a Latin phrase that means reduction to absurdity.  You take your opponent’s premises and show they would lead to something absurd or contradictory.

Twenty-four hundred years ago, in ancient Greece, Plato used this strategy over and over in his Dialogues.  It would help to remember it now.

But I should refrain from deciding that no one can make a case for Big Government.  Let’s see someone try—not merely in a piecemeal fashion, defending a bill here and a bill there.  Let someone argue the merits of Big from the ground up and define what this sort of government stands for and how far it is willing to go in the pursuit of its aims. 

Is it “from each according to his ability, and to each according to his needs”?  Is it taxation without representation?  Let’s see the blueprint.  Let’s see the whole thing.

Sleight of hand is an essential component of a magic show, which moves from one trick to another, but in government it’s a method for concealing the larger driving philosophy that gradually replaces what we thought the nation was supposed to be all about.

I once had a long conversation with a person who professed to be a church-going Unitarian.  He explained that, for him, endless Giving was the guiding force in his life—and he said government should be based on the same theme.

When I inquired about the Constitution, he merely shrugged and said, “It’s a wonderful generous document.”

I asked him to expand on that, and he said, “The Founders were charitable souls.”

I love non-sequiturs.  They allow you to run battleships through holes in your own thinking.          

Jon Rappoport has been working as an investigative reporter for 25 years.  Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize early in his career, he has published articles in LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, CBS Healthwatch, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe.  He has taught in several private schools in New York and Los Angeles, and has tutored extensively in remedial English at Santa Monica College.  At Amherst College, where he graduated with a BA in philosophy, he studied formal logic under Joseph Epstein, a revered professor of philosophy.  He is the author of the LOGIC AND ANALYSIS course, and can be reached at qjrconsulting@gmail.com        

THIRD OPEN LETTER TO HOME SCHOOLERS

By Jon Rappoport

Author of LOGIC AND ANALYSIS,

A course for home-schooled children

qjrconsulting@gmail.com

JUNE 15, 2010.  In the Information Age, a person has several choices. 

He can give in and accept mainstream news as a valid picture of the world. 

He can resort, instead, to some version of so-called alternative news and surrender to that without much thought. 

Or he can become a true independent judge of any source of information, armed with the tools to analyze it sharply and clearly.

There are many herds of sheep, not just one.  A strong individual doesn’t join any herd.  But in order to stand up to efforts to enlist him as a card-carrying sheep, he needs the capacity to examine information with logic.      

Every home school needs a logic course, in the same way that every home school needs to make sure children are literate.

These days, information is a flood.  There is really no way to pick out the good information by merely relying on the reputation of the author of an article or internet post.

We are faced with an undifferentiated mass of material that would take years to digest—and still we wouldn’t be able to catch up.

A need for tools to evaluate information impressed itself on the society of ancient Greece, because Greece was trying, to a degree, to exist as an open Republic.  Therefore, there were many new competing voices.  In its own way, Greece experienced an unprecedented flood of information.

The solution?  Set down principles and strategies for rational discourse.  Try to distinguish between valid and invalid argument.

I use the word “argument” because, in Greece, a man who considered himself a thinker or a politician was fully aware of the fact that he was often challenging others who didn’t share his point of view. 

This is well reflected in the most famous and revered of all Western philosophical works: the Dialogues of Plato.  In these conversations, Plato displays his teacher, Socrates, engaging men of Athens in conversation about the meaning of Justice and Truth and The Good.

Socrates happily maneuvered his opponents into arguments that led to absurdities and contradictions—thus proving that these men were approaching vital issues in a naïve and shallow fashion.

Reading the Dialogues gave the world its first great lesson in logic in action. 

Since then, many refinements have been added to the subject of logic.  Most useful are the so-called fallacies, about 20 major types of errors.  The fallacies are common in many arguments.

In fact, we can find them today in newspaper articles, television news, scientific pronouncements, press releases, political assertions, textbooks, corporate reports, appeals court decisions, legal scholarship, medical advice.  Everywhere.

When students are oblivious to these fallacies, they gloss over information; they passively read it; at best, they memorize it.  The one thing they can’t do is pick out the good information from the flawed information.

And this state of affairs is considered normal education.  What a horrendous joke. 

If you went back to any of the great American political encounters of the 19^th century—for example, the Lincoln-Douglas debates—not only would you find a more complex use of language, you would also encounter the unmistakable efforts of both men to engage in logical discourse.

The assumption was people of that time could understand this form of argument and counter-argument.

Why?  Because they had been educated in a different way.

Today, logic is given a brush-off. 

My course was created to remedy this situation.

I have written passages of text that resemble newspaper articles and internet journalism, and I have embedded them with common logical fallacies.  The students are taught to find these fallacies and see them for what they are.

In this way, they attain another type of literacy: logical literacy.  It will stand them in good stead for the rest of their lives.

As a reporter, week by week and month by month, I watch more and more people lose their ability to string together a logical argument.  They just can’t do it anymore—and they don’t recognize their own shortcoming.  They’ve never been taught a good logic course, and they’re floundering the in the sea of information that’s out there.

I think something needs to be done about it, and the place to start is education.  School.

I welcome your inquiries about my course, LOGIC AND ANALYSIS.  qjrconsulting@gmail.com   

Jon Rappoport has been working as an investigative reporter for 25 years.  Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize early in his career, he has published articles in LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, CBS Healthwatch, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe.  He has taught in several private schools in New York and Los Angeles, and has tutored extensively in remedial English at Santa Monica College.  At Amherst College, where he graduated with a BA in philosophy, he studied formal logic under Joseph Epstein, a revered professor of philosophy.   

THE CULT OF VICTIMHOOD

JUNE 14, 2010.  At a recent “inspirational conference” a friend attended, speaker after speaker marched up to the podium to recount a horrible life story of abuse that eventually turned into gold.

I believe the speakers were trying to say they had been victimized and THEN picked themselves up and made successful lives, but in my role as cynic in such matters, I wondered how much the victim-story had been USED AND PROMOTED to make that success happen.

Anyway, at least several audience members wondered how they could possibly compete with the speakers because, damn it, they didn’t have a history of massive abuse they could use as a banner headline in their own lives. 

I’m citing this conference as a cameo of the society at large.  People—but kids, especially—are always looking for stories that will “play well.”  What happens when the trend turns negative, when it’s perceived that you need a loser’s saga?

In recent years, the compelling need for such a story has become more obvious.  Television reality shows and talk shows are a bundle of best-selling tales of victimhood. 

Add into that mix the relentless advertising of diseases and disorders paid for by drug companies, and you have a blueprint for popularity: “I’m screwed bad.”

It’s a badge of honor.

I’m screwed bad, and I need help.

The whole culture is brimming with stories about victims.  And you can bet kids with a few smarts are getting the message.

Q:  What do you have, kid?

A:  Well, I was diagnosed with ADHD.  The doctor wanted to put me on Ritalin, but my parents said all that was nonsense.

Q:  That’s nothing.  Can’t you come up with something better?

A:  Let’s see, my father hit me once.

Q:  With a golf club?  A sledgehammer?  There was a brain injury?

A:  No.  It was a rolled-up newspaper.  It was an accident.  He was trying to swat a fly in the kitchen.

Q:  Come on.  That’s so lame it’s ridiculous.  Were you ever shot in a drive-by?

A:  What?  No. 

Q:  Did you ever get real drunk and smash up the car and almost die?

A:  No.

Q:  You’re pathetic.  Don’t you at least have a favorite relative who died in a horrible fire and marked your psyche forever?

A:  No.  Is something wrong with me?

Q:  You bet.  What’s wrong is there isn’t enough wrong with you.  Don’t you get it?  Are you in the closet, sexually speaking, and afraid to come out?

A:  No.

Q:  Do you have a congenital genetic disease?

A:  No.

Q:  Are your parents getting a divorce?

A:  No.

Q:  You’re in deep trouble.

A:  I can see that.  I need to cook up something.

Q:  How about this?  Your eyes are backwards.  What you should be seeing out of your left eye you’re seeing out of your right eye, and vice versa. 

A:  Hey, that’s pretty good.

Q:  It‘ll give you some interesting talking points.  You’re a weirdo who can’t live in the world.

A:  Yeah, I get it. 

Q:  You keep parlaying that as you get older, you could probably write a PhD thesis about it.

JON RAPPOPORT

www.nomorefakenews.com

NEEDS, RIGHTS, DESIRES, AND ENTITLEMENTS

JUNE 9, 2010.  There are many messiahs among us. 

They have various visions of the future, but these visions have a common denominator: the future will be One Thing for Everyone.  It will be a single choir singing the same tune.

Why?  Because the messiahs can’t stand plural reality, open reality, fertile reality.  The messiahs want a locked gate on their uniform paradise.

And to make sure the future has that gate, they need Authority, a guiding hand to bring us all into the same campground and keep us there.

Contrast this to the description of limited government embedded in the Constitution.

Then flash forward to the present, when government is the official messiah.  If a person has a need, the government will determine whether it is a right.  If a person has a desire, the government will say whether it is an entitlement.

Although the Bill of Rights enumerated what the government couldn’t do to hinder freedom, the new meaning of “right” is “what I deserve without working for it.”

Imagine what would happen if the president stepped out of the shadows and frankly said: “Here is a list of things you can get without working for them—and in order to give them to you, we’re going to strip assets from other people.”

It’s far worse than that, however, because government is the only entity who can deliver new rights—and that means government will define and enforce the coming paradise.

Consider the psychology of this operation, from the user’s point of view.  It’s as if you spent a few hours with a child and explained to him that he deserved certain things, and it would up to him to decide what these RIGHTS were—and then he could whimper, whine, beg, demand—and maybe he would succeed in getting them.

If aliens from another dimension ever land on Earth and make themselves known, you can be sure they’ll be asking for third, fourth, and fifth eye surgery to alter lens-refraction, so they can perceive 20/20 in this universe, and a cluster of senators will sponsor a bill to fund it with tax money.

Perhaps the mostly deeply ignored fact about the Constitution is this: people wrote it to establish a federal government before there was any such government.

People built the government.  Therefore, the rights listed in the Bill of Rights were people’s way of saying to the very government they were creating, “Don’t try to encroach on us.”

Now, however, most people flaccidly believe the GOVERNMENT is granting US those rights.

It was never that way.

But once the fallacy is in place, government becomes the dispenser.  As such, it can invent new definitions of, and new kinds of, rights and destroy the fabric of society.

For example, the federal government can say: “We have passed a law that defines what illegal immigration is.  This is how we’re going to enforce that law.  We’re not going to enforce it.  Furthermore, we’re going to extend certain benefits and free services to the aliens we designate as illegal.  And those benefits will be funded by the taxpayer.  In other words, we’re going to take people’s earned money and use it for those we have designated as criminals.  You see, the United States isn’t a real country.  It’s part of a global society, and in that society, everybody deserves things.  These things are now called rights.”

And as that signal is given, many messiahs and dreamers step forward and say, “Yes, all this is good.  This will give us, eventually, the universal paradise of love we’ve been seeking.  Everyone will feel that love.  Give it enough time.  Everyone will feel the love that comes from charity and giving.”

If you don’t like that example, try this one.  The government passes a national health-insurance plan.  The government says, “This great gift to all people can’t be paid for unless we take money that isn’t ours from people who earn it.  We take that money by forcing everyone to buy health insurance or pay a penalty.  And we may raise taxes.  We’re doing this because everyone has a right to medical treatment—more specifically, to the kinds of medical treatment we deem appropriate and effective and safe—and to none other.”

And again the many messiahs and dreamers step out into the light and say, “This is good.  This is the expression of caring and love.  We are moving closer to heaven on Earth.”

What does any of this have to do with the notion of limited government spelled out in the Constitution?

“Well,” some say, “it has very little to do with it.  But that doesn’t matter.  What matters is doing the right thing for the greatest number of people, and how you get there is irrelevant.  Obviously, government, generally speaking, is the most powerful force in the world, so government should be prodded until it carries the banner of altruism into every corner of the planet.” 

Really?  In that case, let’s hurry up and pass an Amendment canceling the whole Constitution and replace it with The Church of Doing Good, to which taxable membership will be mandatory.

Coming at this from a slightly different angle: freedom, the messiahs say, was invented so we could give freedom away by giving everybody everything.

However, as it plays out, when you embolden government to be the main messiah, it becomes coercive master of us all.  It can tell us what to do whenever it wants to.  And it wants to.

This fact doesn’t trouble the little messiahs.  They fervently believe forcing people into paradise is necessary, is justified, and pragmatically speaking, may be the only way to get there.

There are a whole host of religious groups and non-profits and advocacy groups and the like, who live to extend Goodness and Charity—and for them such matters as the Constitution and private property mean absolutely nothing.  They are “more evolved,” and they know it.  They are univeralists who are doing the Work.  Factor in the communitarians and the communists and the socialists—in a nice way, of course—and those who see the banner of sympathy and altruism as the selling point for accumulating more power, and the kids who live for hope and change and a better world…and you have a considerable force pushing America into a vision of Daddy and Mommy taking care of everyone.

This force tries to work through government to make their dream come true.       

Rather than concentrate solely on the latest incursion, I believe it’s long past the time when people should begin considering the overall picture.  What vision do you favor?  What is your philosophic view?

And if that view is contrary in letter and spirit to the Constitution, what is your advice on how we should handle the Constitution? 

JON RAPPOPORT

www.nomorefakenews.com

RAPPOPORT AND BREGGIN ON RADIO

JUNE 9, 2010.  Today I’ll be interviewing the great champion of individual rights, psychiatrist Peter Breggin. 

Many years ago, I read his classic, Toxic Psychiatry, and found a north star for my continuing research on the dangers of the pharmaceutical industry.

Peter is a man who is not afraid to change course and change his mind.  In the process, he has weathered the storms of criticisms and attacks from colleagues.  He has also become the conscience of his profession.

For decades, Peter has unfailingly documented, spoken out against, and disrupted the Capture of psychiatry by pharmaceutical interests.

Now, he has taken another daring step forward, linking the act and goal of therapy with the philosophical foundations of the American Republic.

We’ll speak about this sea change and what it could mean for the future of the individual and the nation.

To listen live:  www.ProgressiveRadioNetwork.com   Click on the “listen live” button.

To pick up the interview later in the archive (a day or two after broadcast): http://garynull.squarespace.com/the-jon-rappoport-show/

JON RAPPOPORT

www.nomorefakenews.com