217. Propaganda: The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto from archive.org

 

217. Propaganda: The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto from archive.org

Propaganda   

 

      To get where we got, public imagination had to be manufactured from command centers,  but how was this managed? In 1914 Andrew Carnegie, spiritual leader of the original  band of hard-nosed dreamers, gained influence over the Federal Council of Churches by  extending heavy subsidies to its operations. And in 1918 Carnegie endowed a meeting in  London of the American Historical Association where an agreement was made to rewrite  American history in the interests of social efficiency. Not all leaders were of a single  mind, of course. History isn't that

simple. Beatrice Webb, for instance, declined to accept  financial aid from Carnegie on her visit, calling him "a reptile" behind his back; the high-  born Mrs. Webb saw through Carnegie's pretensions, right into the merchant-ledger of  his tradesman soul. But enough were of a single mind it made no practical difference.  

     On July 4, 1919, the London Times carried a long account reporting favorably on the  propaganda hydra growing in the United States, without identifying the hand of Carnegie  in its fashioning. According to the paper, men "trained in the arts of creating public good  will and of swaying public opinion" were broadcasting an agenda which aimed first at  mobilizing world public opinion and then controlling it. The end of all this effort was  already determined, said the Times — world government. As the newspaper set down the  specifics in 1919, propaganda was the fuel to drive societies away from their past:  

 

     Efficiently organized propaganda should mobilize the Press, the Church, the stage, and  the cinema. Press into active service the whole educational systems of both countries. ..the  homes, the universities, public and high schools, and primary schools. ..histories. ..should  be revised. New books should be added, particularly to the primary schools.  

 

     The same issue of the London Times carried a signed article by Owen Wister, famous  author of the best-selling novel The Virginian. Wister was then on the Carnegie payroll.  He pulled no punches, informing the upscale British readership, "A movement to correct  the schoolbooks of the United States has been started, and it will go on."     

     In March 1925, the Saturday Evening Post featured an article by a prominent Carnegie  official who stated that to bring about the world Carnegie envisioned, "American labor  will have to be reduced to the status of European labor." 7 Ten years later, on December  19, 1935, the New York American carried a long article about what it referred to as "a  secret Carnegie Endowment conference" at the Westchester Country Club in Harrison,  New York. Twenty-nine organizations attending each agreed to authorize a nationwide  radio campaign managed and coordinated from behind the scenes, a campaign to commit  the United States to a policy of internationalism. The group also agreed to present  "vigorous counter-action" against those who opposed this country's entrance into the  League of Nations. Pearl Harbor was only six years away, an international showcase for  globalism without peer. 8  

     Soon after this conference, almost every school in the United States was provided with  full-size color maps of the world and with League of Nations literature extolling the  virtues of globalism. That's how it was done. That's how it still is done. Universal  schooling is a permeable medium. There need not be conspiracy among its internal  personnel to achieve astonishingly uniform results; multiply this tactical victory     thousands of times and you get where we are. Today we call the continuation of this  particular strand of leveling "multiculturalism" — even though every particular culture it  touches is degraded and insulted by the shallow veneer of universalism which hides the  politics of the thing.    

     If the article were written today, the magnitude of reduction would be to an Asian or "global" standard, I would imagine.  Just how wide a gulf there is between propaganda and reality where economic globalism is the issue can   be gathered from a front-page article in the World Business section of March 7, 2003 New York Tines detailing Australia's "12th consecutive  year of economic expansion" in the face of the dismal performance of other industrialized economies. Australia's secret, according to the text  of "Australia keeps Bypassing Pitfalls of Global Economy," is that Australia's economy is not export-dependent, "domestic consumers are the  main pillar of the economy." 

 

 Freud's Nephew