141. Guaranteed Customers: The Underground History of American Education
by John Taylor Gatto from archive.org
Guaranteed
Customers
Prior to 1860 Americans didn't demand a
high level of national solidarity — a loose sort of catch-as-catch-can unity satisfied the
nation in spite of the existence even then of
patriotic special interest groups like Know-Nothings.
Neither by
geography, culture, common experience,
or preference was the United States naturally a single country although it did possess a common language.
But conformity had been ordered by
corporate and banking interests from the Northeast, so one country it
would become.
Stupendous profits accrued to these interests
from the Civil War, and its great lesson of
national regimentation into squads, platoons, brigades, companies,
regiments, and army corps was not lost
on the winners. Warfare by its nature forces men to wear
"value-ranks" openly for all
to see, forces everyone to subordinate themselves to higher ranks, and higher ranks to subordinate themselves to
invisible orders. War conditions men to rule
and to be ruled. Modern war creates a society far different in type and
scale from the ragged and bizarre
individuality which emerged out of the American Revolution. With everyone dressing alike, eating alike, and
doing everything else alike, maximum profit
can be derived from the use of mass-production machinery in an ideal
environment where the goods of
production are swiftly wasted, and military "consumers" are literally forbidden the right to refuse to consume! A
soldier must wear his uniform, eat his food,
fire his rifle. To guaranteed customers through psychological drills is
the very essence of the corporate world
about to come into being.
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