Concord, MA - Because of the increasing number of violent high school incidents and increasing lack of basic skills abilities of graduates of public education, both secondary and higher, the public eye has been focusing, slowly but surely, upon the nation's educrats and pedagogues. However, these mandarins are wily and well-versed in deflecting any attempts to make them accountable.

Many of them are backed by omnipotent teachers unions concerned with increasing salaries, early retirement, fringe benefits and freedom from accountability for members.

The Columbine massacre goaded me to write an essay, "The Happy Culture: at the Core of the Highschool Massacre," which probably differed from most written on the subject, because it envisioned the very crux of the problem, not as a peripheral concern of gun and video game control, but rather as something much, much deeper in the very core of the nation. I sent the essay out in the hope of finding a publisher. The numerous educational reviews I sent it to rejected it with form letters or no letters at all. One on-line journal,Stark Raving Normal, decided to publish it despite certain reservations:

"...You list a great many problems with this country, with the schools, with people, etc. However, it seems that you do not spend nearly as much time articulating solutions or alternatives. The whole essay to me seems very bitter. It does seem that from your story you have reason to be bitter, that I will grant you..."

My response was probably harsh for I wrote back mentioning that although the criticism was well appreciated, it didn't seem quite valid.

I was convinced that the editor had not fully comprehended my essay because it was difficult, if not wholly impossible, for people to fully comprehend injustice when they had never felt the brunt of it. Without getting into the details here, my "reason to be bitter" was my failed attempt to bring public attention to intellectual corruption at three different educational institutions where I'd taught over the years. That story will constitute a future essay.

Just the same, I was not convinced that "bitter" was the right word, for it seemed to be employed often enough by those who, for some reason or other, feel threatened by vocal critics of the party line. Just the same, "bitter" was only the form or style of my writing. Those who tended to deem my work "bitter," and there have been many, rarely if ever discuss the focus or substance of it. For them, simply designating writing "bitter" or "angry" or "spiteful" or "full of personal animus" automatically relieves them from any intellectual obligation to debate or disprove the points evoked and otherwise provides an easy way out for those who find discomfort in the rude Emersonian truth.

Rather than bitterness, I felt disgust and anger.

Indeed, I was disgusted by Clinton, but more so by his hardcore blind loyalist coterie, who, for me, had been all too reminiscent of the high school and college faculties I'd known. I was afraid that America was indeed so rotten at the core that its very presidents could no longer conceal their natural lack of integrity.

Let's not forget the country's manifest destiny foundation upon its overt policy of genocide. Let's not forget that those who enacted the Bill of Rights were slave holders and quite hypocritical pronouncing that all men were equal (blacks, females and Indians excepted, of course).

In all honesty, given the current system, I doubted anything could be done to prevent future high school massacres, barring a massive deployment of police officers, which was why my essay did not provide a hackneyed list of what could be done to improve things. It had become all too obvious that if we didn't change the core of American corporate society, all proposed changes would be cosmetic. I preferred to leave the lipstick and rouge to the mandarins of state education departments.

Hardcore critics must ineluctably appear to be "spiteful" and "bitter" to those who think everything is fine in the USA, rated #17 by the UN, not #1, as the best place to live, and #17 by Transparency International, not #1, regarding its corruption index.

It is a simple matter of semantics: "Bitter" and "spiteful" for blind institutional patriots, speaking the rude truth ˆ la Emerson for hardcore critics. BITTER = RUDE TRUTH. Many of the country's great writers were angry. Anger should not be viewed as negative but rather as a powerful source for creativity. Love is all you need ˆ la Beatles serves the plutocracy quite well.

Again, I'd purposely decided not to articulate solutions or alternatives because I felt that there was only one such solution or alternative: transform America radically, such that America would no longer be America, that is, no longer the European colonized, mercantilized, corporatized state ruled as an obvious plutocracy, rather than the much touted democracy that the nation's children are brainwashed to believe it is by the public schools they attend. This will not happen, which is why there will be future high school massacres.

Just the same, ah, just the same, I've drawn up a shortlist of core solutions that might be apt to provoke fundamental change. For evident reasons, I have not seen any of them mentioned in the many articles spawned by the massacre. Most of the points enumerated will no doubt illicit the typical blind institutional patriotic remarks, which inevitably include the big HIDE, that is, Hatred of critics, Incomprehension of lucid argumentation, Denial and Extenuation (i.e., excuse and rationalization).

Indeed, they will elicit hackneyed comments such as the following:

• "You're full of personal animus;"
• "But everything is fine in public education. I'm a teacher;"
• "The Columbine massacre was an exception;" and
• "I don't understand one thing that you've written."

HIDE. That's right. Continue to HIDE and we shall have continuing high school --- and why not college and university --- massacres.

Gun control. Sure, that's important. Video games. Maybe also. Discussion of cliques. Well, that too. But most of all we need to look at the core. Why aren't the school committees and educationists looking at the core? For the simple reason that they are right at the core.

The following is my shortlist of things that need to be re-evaluated. Each point might constitute an eventual essay in itself, where fine details need to be exposed and examined, and concrete and practical ways to implement change developed.

Eight Crucial Points Necessary for Crucial Change

1. Reevaluate all traditional role-model figures, including teachers, college professors, congressmen and -women, Senators, Presidents, police, wealthy businesspeople, lawyers, doctors, millionaire athletes, priests and astronauts. Is it not bizarre that two of the four most admired men in America include a congenital liar and a basketball player? Indeed, the very concept of role model needs to be redefined. No longer should we designate as community pillars those who possess large bank accounts, professional titles, batting averages or exclusive club memberships.

   Real and proven honor, integrity, courage, truth and justice must replace those traditional defining traits. Hypocrisy must be fought rather than sheepishly accepted. We must rewrite the textbooks. We must rewrite what should constitute civic duty. Indeed, rather than emphasize voting for some Democrat or Republican millionaire, we need to underscore open and courageous criticizing of a system that seems only to permit millionaires to obtain public office.

   Much thought and debate must be injected into this first core fundament. Perhaps schools need to sponsor periodic rogues gallery seminars, where corrupt community pillars are examined one by one. Students need to be exposed to formal seminars that examine and reexamine community pillars caught red-handed and escaping punishment for their misdeeds. One such seminar might include Senator Teddy Kennedy's drunk driving and homicide, President Bill Clinton's perjury, the dean of the College of Divinity at Harvard University recently caught with a mound of pornography, the five Boston policemen who tested positive for heroin, marijuana and cocaine, and O J Simpson.

   Other seminars should examine pillars in the immediate community. It is all too easy to point the finger over yonder. American university scholars have been doing that for years. No university should have invited Clinton to speak at a graduation commencement this year, yet I'm sure many did. How could Grambling University's administrators, if not for money and recognition, have possibly justified having the president declare in front of its students that students should "spend more time with their families"? How could a thinking student at Grambling not see that statement as an example of gross hypocrisy.

2. Reevaluate the American myths, patriotism, history and other American realities, especially those enshrined in the Bill of Rights, the Star Spangled Banner and the Pledge of Allegiance. Just how equal in reality are American citizens with regards to each other? Is America one nation under one god or is it many nations under different gods or no gods at all? Are we not a conglomerate, rather than a melting pot, of the First Nations, the Hispanic nation, the Black nation, the Queer nation and the Aryan nation, amongst others?

   The justice system is a shabby system, rife with police testi-lying, prosecutors hiding or fabricating valuable evidence and almost always given immunity when caught. Indeed, even CBS' John Roberts recently stated (6/1/99) that "misconduct by prosecutors may be more common than you think."

   The OJ trial should have had the entire nation working feverishly to reevaluate the system, yet it seems that nobody is doing anything but forgetting... in the same manner that they are doing with our perjuring president. The nation's incarceration rate is second to that of Russia's, though will soon become first in the world. It's per capita rate is already highest in the world.

   America as land of the free and great benefactor is also a myth with nearly two million citizens incarcerated, while others are tied to the most tedious jobs possible like slaves. Where does the country spend its wealth? What really is America's foreign "aid," if not propaganda, payments for military bases, payments for "friends" and payments to allow American corporations to enslave foreigners?

3. Reevaluate, in the same manner, all traditional cliches including the most obvious one that deems old people, women, children and community pillars as intrinsically good. Indeed, it seems that America to the evident benefit of the ruling oligarchy has become a society based on cliches, including the myths of the log cabin, melting pot, manifest destiny and American dream. Multiculturalism and resulting affirmative action favoritism must be reevaluated. Reverse discrimination or black hate crimes committed against whites must no longer be condoned, even if reluctantly. Even in my restricted domain as writer, I am constantly confronted in my search for publishers with racial and sexual orientation biases. Indeed, it seems that many if not most journals or book publishers would rather publish on that basis rather than on the basis of truth telling. This issue needs to be examined in the context of our educational system.
4. Reevaluate the "don't talk to strangers" pitch given to most children. Imagine what that must do to a child's psyche... "don't talk to strangers," "don't talk to strangers" over and over and over. Indeed, when I walk around Walden Pond in Concord where I live, I often notice children looking at me like I'm a stranger with all the negative connotations that accompany that. But that's not so bad. What's really bad is that I often see adults looking at me like I'm a stranger too. Indeed, I've always felt that most people don't give a damn about you if you are not part of their family or immediate circle of friends.

   Mexico serves as a counter example. Most children I meet when walking in the town squares of that country look at me like I'm not a stranger. They're not afraid of me. It's quite a different and refreshing experience. Americans have become hyper-protective of their children. This has had negative affects on society. Strangers tend not to trust strangers. White strangers tend to distrust black strangers more than white strangers and vice versa.

5. Reevaluate America's emphasis on the body as opposed to the mind. It is perhaps imperative to get the American head off the body and into the mind. Our Bodies, Ourselves came out in the sixties. Our Beautiful Bellies has just come out. Is it not time for Our Minds, Ourselves and Our Beautiful Heads? Perhaps it is time once and for all to extract sports from our educational institutions. America is depicted in the world often as a shallow society of superficial culture and brute warrior-children. Indeed, the recent spate of American bombings seems to confirm that view. Let's bring back that wonderful NAACP slogan: "the mind is a wonderful thing... if you use it."

   High emphasis on athlete role models (team-playing and conformity) has wreaked untold havoc to thought and individuality in America. Sure, billions of dollars have been made by community pillars, but at what untold cost to the nation's children? Is it not time for the nation's schools to start promoting great American thinkers and iconoclasts, including Thoreau, Emerson, Baldwin, Douglass and Mencken, instead of athletes? Why does every highschool in the nation affix "HOOP TONIGHT. GO JIM, GO!" signs by the front doors of their institutions instead of quotes by great American thinkers? Let them affix the following quote by H. L. Mencken, for example, on their marquees:

   The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever pretensions of politicians, pedagogues other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.

   Let the schools examine in a formal context the integrity of the nation'sbody-beautiful movie stars and singers too! What do those multimillionaires do with all their cash? Why do our great actors seem to play cops and cops and cops and mafiosi all the time?

   We need to reevaluate the supposed war on drugs, the nation's drug corporations, lobbies and FDA. We have failed in the supposed drug war. "Say No To Drugs" has become a national joke. We have become a Prozac Nation and a Ritalin Nation. The country's educrats are in cahoots with the country's drug companies and are responsible for drugging millions of children not to help their minds, but to make their bodies obedient.

   Let the schools affix the following quote by Richard DeGrandpre (Ritalin Nation) on their marquees:

   Despite persistent efforts to play up ADD as a biological disorder while downplaying Ritalin as a powerful, mind-altering drug, we know that Ritalin is as powerful as any other stimulant, especially when crushed and snorted (or injected). As one journalist puts it, referring to the similarities between Ritalin and cocaine, "Americans would be horrified to learn that 2 million children across the nation are being given cocaine by their parents and doctors to make them behave better in school. It's also close to the truth that it takes a chemist to tell the difference."

6. Reevaluate property ownership and hoarding. We need to reevaluate money as the very foundation of everything American. This point will be particularly tough because it challenges the country's very foundation. We need to start thinking about placing ceilings on personal wealth. The rich-poor gap in America is immense and growing. We need to examine what that is doing to the student psyche. We need to educate the citizenry that mental acquisition can be more satisfying than material acquisition. We need to educate the citizenry not to admire people who own mansions all over the place. Currently, most Americans look gaga-eyed at a Kennedy, Oprah, Madonna or Buffett. It would be better for the citizenry's intellectual growth to scorn such mega-hoarders. Indeed, children are subtly taught to admire the rich and famous, no matter how corrupt they may be.
7. Reevaluate the nation's very institutions. The election process is corrupt. Again, we need to examine why an honorable man or woman can not achieve senatorship or presidency and what that means to the country. The system of justice is corrupt. We need to examine how the wealthy, black or white, have been able to appropriate a different system of justice than that available to the average citizen. We need to teach students that this is an unfortunate fact not to be proud of. We need to teach them how to change, rather than simply accept, such inequity and iniquity.

   I noticed a bumper sticker at Walden Pond the other day: SOW JUSTICE, REAP PEACE. Indeed, there is much injustice in America and much resultant hostility. We need to refocus on the justice system.

   We saw Clinton and Simpson. We hear about crooked cops. We hear about DNA. But we don't often hear about the rampant behind-the-scenes injustice in the nation's universities and at the work place. We need to take a closer look at the mass of injustices that often are not reported in the media. Indeed, we need to reevaluate the media, which more often than not ignores the stories of dissident Americans because the stories often do not contain sufficient hype quotient.

   We need to teach students not to be swayed by hype. Let the high schools affix upon their marquees the following quote by Kors and Silvergate (The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses):

   In a nation whose future depends upon an education in freedom, colleges and universities are teaching the values of censorship, self-censorship, and self-righteous abuse of power... Universities have become the enemy of a free society, and it is time for the citizens of that society to recognize this scandal of enormous proportions and to hold these institutions to account... Universities are administered, above all, not by ideological zealots, but by careerists who have made a Faustian deal.

8. Reevaluate the very mandarins of education, the ones who have permitted, in the name of selfishness, the nation's schools and colleges to fall into such a horrendous state of affairs. We need to reevaluate their modus operandi of omertˆ (oath of secrecy and silence), cronyism, patronage, corruption, denial and rationalization. We need to reevaluate who sits on school committees and who sits on the boards of trustees of the nation's public colleges and universities. Does being a millionaire used car salesperson make a person more qualified as a trustee than a blacklisted college professor who blew the whistle on academic corruption? Currently, it does.