POLITICS Re: Dirty Secrets of H1N1 Vaccine?

[Guest guest]

Re: the Birch thing, I know a lot of people who are on G. 's

" Unfiltered News " list and since is a Birch guy, it gets that

flavor. Of course, they're against socialized medicine, don't believe in global

warming, and think the government doesn't need to get involved in wildlife

conservation or pollution issues, so most health people I know aren't so much of

the Birch way of thinking.

> \

> > And then there's Charlotte Iserbyt - former Senior Policy Advisor in the

> > Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of

> > Education, during the first Reagan Administration former school board

> > director in Camden, Maine, and co-founder and research analyst of Guardians

> > of Education for Maine.

> >

> > Her book is free online here:

> >

> > the deliberate dumbing down of america

> > http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/

> >

> > Suze

> >

>

> I really don't want to get into another big argument, but boy this is a really

bizarre, scary book--it's scary that she was an adviser on education to Reagan.

Most of the book's list of dangerous authors were authors who wrote positive,

useful things about education or tried to provide scientific approaches to

psychology and education (science free from religion seems to be disallowed by

the author). It lumps together authors like Dewey, Rousseau, and Bertrand

with Hitler and Communist Party representatives, along with alleged

devious policy initiatives, like implementing formal budgeting requirements in

government agencies.

>

> It suggests that we ought to avoid active learning and critical thinking, so I

guess indoctrination and passive, rote learning are in. Finally, it is written

in a conspiratorial tone, where all these unconnected fragments are made to seem

" deliberate " steps in some unfolding conspiracy. The discussion of the use of

the dialectic by " change agents " looking to subvert traditional values was

priceless. Honestly, I don't really want to convert anybody to my own views on

politics and education, but I'd really love to know why this kind of

Birch-style analysis is so popular among the natural foods community.

>

> Bill

>