JTG New Book Commemorative Blog

I just found out that John Taylor Gatto wrote a new book, Weapons of Mass Instruction (...did he steal that phrase from Huckabee?? Though, I'm sure Huck had the naive intention to actually use such weapons, whereas Gatto wants only to expose and destroy them.). Apparently it will be available on Halloween. Scary stuff. Anyway, it just got me to thinking about some of the things I've learned thanks to Gatto.

A footnote in The Underground History of American Education alerted me to the fact that both John Kerry and George Bush were members of the secret society of Skull & Bones (see notes at the end for correction on the dramatic reference to Moloch). That piqued my curiosity enough to get me to the library, and a book on the organization made the claim (or was it Gatto again? Now I'm getting all confused) that a Supreme Justice and S&B member had declared corporations equivalent to persons without argument. Wikipedia backs up that claim, and I quote:

"The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does."
- Justice Morrison Waite (though Wikipedia does not seem to ackowledge his involvement with S&B, though it can be verified elsewhere - see the first link posted here on S&B), Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 1886

Another point of interest, is that corporations as we know them are a relatively new historic development. To quote Wikipedia again, on the history of corporations:

"In the United States, government chartering began to fall out of vogue in the mid-1800s. Corporate law at the time was focused on protection of the public interest, and not on the interests of corporate shareholders. Corporate charters were closely regulated by the states. Forming a corporation usually required an act of legislature. Investors generally had to be given an equal say in corporate governance, and corporations were required to comply with the purposes expressed in their charters." (emphasis mine - and I believe the corporate charters had to be periodically renewed with the consent of the legislature)

Again from the first article linked here, let me give this moving quote from Samuel Adams:

"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."

The emphasized part reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Eowyn in Lord of the Rings:

(in response to the question of what she fears) "A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire."

Sometimes I compare myself to this. I was talking to my mom a couple months ago, and recounting that with the exception of babysitting and a few months spent working for Name Brand Clothing (a reduced price clothing store in Tulsa), all the jobs in my life have been either for government, or a government contractor, or a multinational corporation (Wal-Mart and Microsoft, specifically). She keeps telling me "Jennifer, if you ever did something that you really believed in, you'd be dangerous." Part of me automatically dismisses this as nothing more than motherly pride - but another part of me keeps wondering if it might be true.

What alternatives are there? Be a stay-at-home-homeschool-mom? That requires kids, which I do not currently have. Follow the Atlas Shrugged model and forsake what I value in order to protect what I value? I think I was never able to fully embrace that logic (Which is why "proving" homeschool through traditional academic success always seemed weird to me). Well, a few days ago I was talking to my mom again, and telling her about an invention/business idea that I had as a teenager. I won't go into the details here (lest someone on the internet steal my idea). Perhaps it will never work - but maybe I'm ready to try... otherwise I might spend my life in Eowyn's so-called cage.

Well, Yom Kippur begins at sundown, I believe (if you use the "traditional" calendar, rather than the sighting of the moon). Happy Fasting, All :)