Charlotte Iserbyt: Societies Secrets

[Gary Severson]

Charles, I suggest 10 yrs. because I think I've been hearing about it in its distorted version for that long. If we say 10 yrs, that means that for about 40 yrs., i.e. 1961 to 2000 no one noticed the reference to secret societies in the speech. I think that is doubtful in itself. I'm tempted to find the origin but I don't know if it is that important. Could you clarify what it means if e.g., it is only 5 yrs. instead of 10 prior to Sorensen's death, that he was bothered by it.

[Charles Drago]

Gary,

To bestow upon reaction to the "secret societies" speech -- a relatively obscure speech compared to that delivered at American University on 6/10/63 -- the power to haunt Sorensen is to elevate its significance.

I simply cannot imagine that individuals whose opinions mattered to or were heard by Sorensen would have misinterpreted "secret societies" and/or given such gravitas to lesser lights, so to speak, who were ranting and raving about nothing.

The American University speech, however, was well known and, among the cognoscenti aware of the forces that likely brought down JFK, appreciated for the manner in which it advocated for a paradigm shift which the Unspeakable would not be able to survive.

But let's eliminate all doubt: Are you claiming that Ted Sorensen, speaking to you, referenced the "secret societies" speech specifically and unambiguously as the speech that was being described as, in essence, JFK's death warrant?

[Gary Severson]

Charles, yes unambiguously. The night before during his keynote Q&A in front of 1000 people he had to dodge, with the help of the moderator, a question from a man wanting to know about the "secret society" speech. He sarcastically responded that the question was irrelevant and he moved on. The next day I had the said discussion with Sorensen that led to his comment about not wanting to take the blame for JFK's death to the grave because of the supposed secret society speech. As I was asking him about James Douglas' ref. to him in THE UNSPEAKABLE he stopped me 4 times because he thought I was trying to ask another SS question like the guy the night before. Each time I had to stop him to get him to listen to a question about James D. ref. to him, Ted.S., in his book JFK & The Unspeakable. He didn't know of the book. Finally I said, "I'm not talking about the "secret society" speech," at which point he volunteered that he "wasn't going to go to his grave being blamed for JFK's death because of that speech". He then let me proceed. He was visibly upset as he had tried 4 times to stop me from asking what he thought was going to be a "secret society" question which is why I say he was haunted by the speech's misinterpretation by so many. I hope that is an adequate explanation.

I talked with him a couple more times during the weekend about other things like the fact that JFK didn't say anything in his 9/25/63 UND speech about the fact that the Limited Test ban Treaty had been passed by the Senate the day before. This would have been 3mths. after the June 10 Amer. Univ. speech. JFK considered this his most satisfying accomplishment. Sorensen told me he didn't know why JFK didn't mention it the next day in his GF speech but he did a day or so later. The speech in GF was about the environment & saving the wild places in the west because it was too late to do so on the east coast. He was ahead of his time. It was the one of the most memorable experiences of my life, with the exception of my children's births, to have sat directly in front of him in the 1st row as he spoke.

[Ed Jewett]

You just provided a description what I would call "socialist man".

The problem with computer gaming systems relates to the original post here describing her whistleblowing experience in the US Dept. of Ed where she discovered the plan to replace teachers with computers and have coaches, i.e. minimum wage paras, coach in computerized classrooms. That enables the oligarchy to spend more on preemtive wars to export more "inverted totalitarianism". See Princeton's Sheldon Wallin's work & his description of the destruction of not just democracy but politics by the national security state.

I respectfully disagree, in some general sense, but we are getting far afield from the topic of the thread (or even its sub-topics). I don't disagree with the last two sentences in which you discuss the oligarchy, pre-emptive wars, inverted totalitarianism, and the destruction of politics by the national security state. I am unfamiliar with Wallin's work but, on the surface, it sounds like I would agree with it.

But it appears that you have seized upon a very limited aspect of my description of a range of ideas about educational reform. I don't know what you define as "socialist man" I did try to find an acceptable definition of the term but found several of them, few of which I could actually understand; perhaps in a different place you can describe this type of individual, how he is trained or taught, what he is trained or taught, and how that works out for him. One book noted above is by Howard Gardner, a professor of the psychology of education at Harvard, who describes multiple intelligences and how they differ from person to person; we can't all be the same, and all low scores in one intelligence can't necessarily be altered significantly no matter how many highly-paid teachers or sophisticated teaching systems you throw at it.

I heard the other day about how much happier everyone was in a socialist government; I didn't get any clarification from that person either.

I don't suspect, as I did of him, that you are tossing the terminology around lightly. Are people who are "socialist men and women" competitive in a socialist society? Are they capable of being auto-didactic? Self-motivated? Does the system of socialism honor and allow for individual differentiation, personal sovereignty, and cognitive freedom? How does the "socialist man" make use of his talents and intelligences if all value belongs to the state? Is there no incentive? My daughter's teammates used to get angry because she went to the gym frequently -- an All-American in strength and conditioning -- and routinely -- by performance -- created pressure on them to do the same. At lower levels, they screamed at her not to throw the ball so hard. Are they "socialist" teammates?

With regard to past or current plans to replace classroom teachers, I have three reactions to your comments. The system addressed in the book I noted does not replace classroom teachers; it actually adds a layer of "coaches" who, by their very nature, must be super-prepared in terms of educational psychology and counseling, pre-testing (as opposed to post-testing), and in terms of a broad understanding about how knowledge is acquired, and are likely to have to be paid more, not less. Secondly, there are, whether we like it or not, elements of some education that can be handled adequately and arguably better than an average bipedal because, through systems, they can allow for more sophisticated personalization that allows the individual learner to proceed on a proper path that is fitted to them and their understanding and performance, and to proceed on that path more rapidly. Finally, with regard to teachers and whether they should be retained, paid, given job/social benefits, etc., how is the mass of them doing so far? How are they serving society and the individual?

I am not talking here about the current trends in educational systems management, Bush's No Child Left Behind and Obama's Race to the Top. That stuff sounds good on the campaign trail, in an Orwellian sound bite.

I am more concerned with the individual than the collective. The oligarchy wants sheep, robotic workers, people dumb enough to shut up, sit down, consume, and get to debt slavery jobs.

I am talking about the 8th grade teacher who, when asked about how my daughter might find some experience that would allow her to explore a possible love for animal care, didn't have an answer, didn't suggest that she would give it some thought, and couldn't name the two obvious answers we as parents had already considered. I am talking about middle school principals who leer at adolescent girls and make lewd jokes about them when they think no one can hear them. I am talking about high school officials, teachers, and others who favor their own children above others and get irritated when someone else comes along and takes the prize away from them on the basis of hard work.

I am talking about the high school baseball coach who, when asked by my son if he could be told when he would be on the pitching rotation so that a college coach could come and see him, was laughed out of the office. [The coach came and offered him a half-time scholarship for four years and he was a starting pitcher for a team that won the NE D-II league championship.] This is the same coach who forced him to undergo, as a catcher, a "balls in the dirt" drill run indoors on hardwood -- without a chest protector -- from which he came home covered with black-and-blue bruises all over his chest and arms.]

I am talking about a coach who told my daughter she might be lucky enough to win a partial scholarship at a small D-II school in New Hampshire but was unaware that she had the skills to be recruited in another sport by five or six top D-I schools, one of which invited her to apply as an honors student and then gave her a full four-year scholarship in athletics.

I am talking about teachers who tell their students they can't... when they should be telling their students they can, and will, and giving them the understanding of their own mind that will allow them to accomplish anything they choose to achieve. That doesn't sound like a socialist man or woman to me.

[Gary Severson]

I don't want to pursue this on this thread but will say a few things. The Soviet athletes were very competitive as we saw in every Olympics. The Soviet system graduated 5 million HS students with 2 years of calculus because teachers were not allowed to use the fallacious concept of IQ as we do in this country. As a result student potentials were allowed to flower.

[Magda Hassan]

I don't want to pursue this on this thread but will say a few things. The Soviet athletes were very competitive as we saw in every Olympics. The Soviet system graduated 5 million HS students with 2 years of calculus because teachers were not allowed to use the fallacious concept of IQ as we do in this country. As a result student potentials were allowed to flower.

Agreed Gary! There was much good in the Soviet education system. If you showed an aptitude in any area all resources were at your disposal to assist in blossoming and it benefited society as a whole.

[Ed Jewett]

Magda and Gary: There are over two hundred source books (plus notes from about 20 hours of post-graduate classroom lecture) in "Summon The Magic". I look forward -- delivered in a new thread, or by PM or e-mail, but subject to publication -- to your explanations and support for the argument where, in all of that, there is any discussion about socialism, the state, duty to the state or the people of the state.

Have you read all 200 books? Do you have the list?

The mind-map for the totality of the concept is a graphic that links 226 key words; in those 226 words, how many of them have anything to do with the state, government, political systems or approaches, or society?

[Gary Severson]

ED, with all do respect you say you don't know much about Marxism. How would you know then what a socialist person looks like? All the attributes you describe in your bibliography are indicative of the profile of "better" people. I do know something about many of these authors you cite and they are in many cases very liberal in their worldview and not averse to leftist politics. Of course that doesn't make them Marxists. Having said that I think the type of person that is educated to reach their personal potential includes the development of a greater appreciation for their fellow man. IOW "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country"

[Magda Hassan]

Magda and Gary: There are over two hundred source books (plus notes from about 20 hours of post-graduate classroom lecture) in "Summon The Magic". I look forward -- delivered in a new thread, or by PM or e-mail, but subject to publication -- to your explanations and support for the argument where, in all of that, there is any discussion about socialism, the state, duty to the state or the people of the state.

Have you read all 200 books? Do you have the list?

The mind-map for the totality of the concept is a graphic that links 226 key words; in those 226 words, how many of them have anything to do with the state, government, political systems or approaches, or society?

Ed, I do not have the list. It may have been on my previous and now expired computer :damncomputer:

[Ed Jewett]

ED, with all do respect you say you don't know much about Marxism. How would you know then what a socialist person looks like? All the attributes you describe in your bibliography are indicative of the profile of "better" people. I do know something about many of these authors you cite and they are in many cases very liberal in their worldview and not averse to leftist politics. Of course that doesn't make them Marxists. Having said that I think the type of person that is educated to reach their personal potential includes the development of a greater appreciation for their fellow man. IOW "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country"

But you're working from a very small sampling of the whole, and can't have any idea about the excerpts I selected from them, and certainly haven't read the "synthesis". You are working from within your own world view and extrapolating about something you can't have seen unless you know one of the few people who has seen the entirety of it; we're talking over 1,400 pages, not including appendices and adjuncts. The text alone represents, in single-sided format, three three-inch three-ring binders or, in digital format, an entire CD. As the major theme of the venture is in learning about how the unity of mind/body/spirit works and how one individual can improve that within themselves by understanding their minds, and given that at least four or five of the source books are from the worlds of the cognitive sciences (neuro-psychiatry, psychology, etc.), and given that every individual is unique in some way in their mix of nature (genetics) and nurture (learning environment), how is it that you can jump to a conclusion and apply a label?

Much of the world of "secret societies" is about how an individual can be shaped by training, experience and other psycho-drama that is imposed from without by others; indeed, we are immersed in propaganda, psycho-babble, poor understanding of how the human mind/experience works, and indeed its weaponization by "the state" for purposes as benign as marketing and advertising and as ugly as servitude through mind control.

How about if we teach individuals how to understand and decide for themselves how their mind should serve them as solitary sentient human beings? How about if we allow individuals to understand how to evolve their own world view from within themselves without interference from state, church, or others? Their baseline from birth to age _?_ is necessarily driven by parents, schools, etc. When and how do their begin their own God-given right to be independent and free?

I repeat the question and the challenge: Where, in your estimation, is there sentiment and suggestion for socialism in the synthesis or the source material?