Breaking News: Omaha Shooter Had History with Psychiatric Drugs

Prescription drugs are connected to school shootings and other violence, yet more drugs are touted as the solution
by Mike Adams

The United States is gaining a reputation around the world for raising children who go on school shooting rampages. Earlier this year, we had another one with 16-year-old Jeff Weiss, who went into his school on an Indian reservation and blew away 10 friends. And guess what? He was taking the antidepressant Prozac.

Once again we see the link between antidepressants and violent behavior. I was raising the alarm about this in 1999 following the Columbine schools shootings. At that time we knew that those students were on antidepressant drugs, but the rest of the world didn't take any notice of it. The rest of the world said, "These drugs are completely safe. They keep these kids happy and in a normal state so they don't feel depressed." What they actually do, though, is detach these kids from reality to the point they can go on shooting rampages and not even have a clue that they're affecting the lives of real people. It basically transforms the world into a video game that these kids play out.

It makes it very easy for them to cross that threshold and begin to display violent behavior. We've seen this in the studies and finally, after years and years of pounding this issue, some of it has started to come out in the popular press. We're seeing a lot of warnings now about antidepressant drugs and their ability to cause violent behavior. We're seeing some of these drugs pulled off the market. And slowly we're beginning to see the general public recognizing the link between antidepressant drugs in our youth and violent behavior, including school shootings.

Back in 1999, they blamed guns. So if the students had picked up knives and stabbed people to death, it would have been a knife problem? Give me a break; it's not a knife problem, or a gun problem… it's a medication problem. These schools are supposed to be drug-free zones, and yet half the kids are doped up on antidepressants and Ritalin. How is that drug-free?

If you're going to alter the brain chemistry of these children, you had better be prepared for the results. The result we're seeing now is mass killings. Elsewhere around the world, where children aren't doped up on all these drugs, we don't see this kind of behavior. This is what happens when you change children's brain chemistry; you get these results.

Now, you can talk about other factors that may be involved. We can talk about violent video games, for example, and how some of these first-person shooter games are potentially training simulators for violent and aggressive behavior. However, I think you can only push that argument so far. If a child can distinguish between a video game and reality, then he's not going to be running around shooting people in the real world just because he played a video game.

That doesn't mean these video games are healthy. I would certainly prefer that children played something a little less violent, but I don't think you can blame the video games for this behavior. You've got to go to the brain chemistry. It's when you alter the brain chemistry that bad things start to happen.

Boosting brain health with nutrition

Now, are there healthy ways to alter brain chemistry? Of course there are. Fundamentally, this is actually a nutritional problem. If a child is depressed, or if he or she is suffering from so-called ADHD -- which is a completely fictional disease, by the way -- you can resolve the vast majority of these issues by making changes in their diet.

As much as 80 percent of children diagnosed with ADHD can be completely free of the "disease" in a matter of weeks just by taking certain metabolic disrupters out of their diet -- most notably, refined sugars and refined grains, such as white flour and artificial food colors. Imagine how healthy children's nervous systems could be if we fed them good nutrition. What if they had some supergreens or just some basic vitamins, minerals and whole food concentrates? What could we do for the health of their brains?

They would have stable moods, they would have non-aggressive behavior, and they would be more creative and more willing to learn. We could raise a whole generation of healthy, intelligent children if we started with nutrition, because the brain and nervous system are physical organs. People forget that. The brain is a physical organ, and just like any physical organ in your body, if you don't give it the right nutrients, then it won't function properly.

Trying to raise a normal child without nutrition is akin to running a car without oil

It's sort of like trying to run your car without any oil in it. I know that's a crude metaphor, but some people get the point that way. You have to have good nutrition for the brain; that means B vitamins and lots of minerals -- magnesium, zinc, calcium and the trace minerals as well. You have to have the phytonutrients, the pigmentation in these foods -- the blues in the berries and the reds in the tomatoes and peppers, the orange in carrots and so on.

The colors of foods are actually potent phytochemicals, and these colors have highly protective effects on the nervous system. They also boost immune system function in the body and can help reduce arthritis and inflammation. They have a lot of beneficial effects in the body, yet children today are growing up on mostly processed foods and junk foods.

You probably remember what you ate as a teenager. It's an atrocious diet. I know mine was a terrible diet. I can't believe I made it to the age of 25 based on what I was eating then. But some kids aren't making it, and they're not making it because they lack the basic nutrition they need to have healthy functioning nervous systems.

So what does this organized medicine and psychiatry do to combat this problem? It doses teenagers up on prescription drugs as if drugs are the answer to every problem. Then they have another answer when these kids go out and shoot each other. The answer, then, is prison time. "We'll lock these kids away because they're dangerous to society."

Instead of spending a few dollars on nutrition to raise a healthy, balanced human being with a functioning nervous system, we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars, over the life of this person to keep them incarcerated. We build more prisons. We put them on more drugs, and we do nothing to create a productive member of society.

It only takes a few dollars worth of nutrition each month to support a healthy child. Of course, there's more to it than just nutrition; there are things like good parenting, a great living environment, a challenging learning environment and so on. But in terms of the nutritional aspect, it only takes a few dollars. Nutrition doesn't have to be expensive.

Investing in the health of our children is a bargain

To cover the nutrition basics only costs a few dollars a month, and that investment would pay off so much in our society. It would be returned many times over very quickly because every kid that we can save from the prison system and give a new opportunity, in terms of being able to learn and take on a skill and have real job opportunities out there, produces a windfall of returns for society. That child is going to grow up and be a productive member of society. He or she is going to pay taxes, possible raise a family and be part of a community. Instead, we put them in prison, dose them up on drugs and blame them for their actions when I believe they've actually been instigated by the prescription drugs and toxic chemicals in their foods.

The don't need to be punished as mush as they simply need to be nourished. I know this stands at odds with the current "incarcerate everybody" mentality that dominates the culture here in the United States, the land of prisons -- but it's the truth. Why are we the country with the greatest prison population in the world? It might be the same reason we are the nation with the worst health problems in the world. They are connected, you know. People who are unhealthy are unhappy, moody and can display aggressive, violent behavior. Change their diets and you can turn many criminals into normal people. Not all of them, of course, but a large number.

Modern society is addicted to drugs

Someday historians will look back on this era and wonder with great bewilderment how we could poison our children with such toxic chemicals, how we could poison an entire generation with prescription drugs and how we could keep all our senior citizens in a zombie state, dosed up on mind-altering drugs. They will wonder, "How could we do this as a society? Were we insane? Were we completely out of our minds? What was wrong with this society?"

At that time, society will have moved way beyond chemical-based medicine. We will be focused on disease prevention, and we'll have electro-medicine. We'll be using non-local medicine, for example, to help people stay healthy. We'll have outstanding nutrition available at a very reasonable cost in formats people can enjoy taking. Someday, nutrition will be recognized as the number one way to prevent disease and keep people healthy.

Belief in chemicals as a cure-all is just one more sign that we are living in the dark ages of medicine

Today, however, we're living in the Dark Ages of medicine. We're still living in the chemical-based medical society where everybody says that chemicals are the solutions to health problems.

"Does your head hurt? You need a chemical. Blood pressure too high? We have a chemical for that, too. Do you feel nervous speaking in front of groups? We have a chemical for that one. Having trouble with your relationships? Chemical. Got a little bit of joint pain? Yup, there's a chemical for that." Then they'll tell you, just in case, "We have chemicals for stuff that you haven't even experienced yet. We have chemicals that you can take to make sure that you never have pain or heart disease. You should take all these chemicals right now, just in case, and keep taking them for as long as you live."

How's that for a con? The con of pharmaceutical-based medicine is the biggest con ever perpetrated on the American people. That con has effects in our schools, and unfortunately, some of those side effects are fatal.

The silent holocaust of pharmaceutical deaths

Let's look at this in perspective: We're talking about 10 children being killed in this particular incident, and there are a lot of headlines about these 10 children being killed. Certainly, it is a tragedy. None of those children deserved to die, and it didn't have to happen if only we were able to actually take care of our children and feed them right in the first place. But let's compare those 10 deaths to how many Americans have been killed by prescription drugs this year alone. Even the Journal of the American Medical Association says in a peer-reviewed study that prescription drugs cause 100,000 deaths a year in this country.

Ten children die in this school shooting, and it gets a lot of attention. Why? It's violent; people pay attention to violence. Meanwhile, we have 100,000 Americans (and that's a conservative number) dying every year just from prescription drugs side effects, and it gets no attention. Why? It's not violent. These 100,000 people die separately, and they die quietly. They die in homes or in hospitals. There's no fiery crash, there's no late-night footage for the news, there's no big explosion and there's nothing to report to the tabloid papers. It's just 100,000 people dying silently.

Also, more than 16,500 deaths a year are caused by over-the-counter pain medications. Non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) kill more than 16,500 people a year by gastrointestinal bleeding. Then the COX-2 inhibitors, which were supposed to be safer than the NSAIDs, came along, and according to studies by chief drug researcher Dr. David Graham at the FDA, they've caused more than 144,000 heart attacks, more than 40 percent of which have been fatal.

So what are we talking about here? We're talking about drugs killing more Americans than the entire Vietnam War. We're talking about it happening every year -- twice a year, in fact. You want to talk about a war; this is war on the people, and it's being waged by the pharmaceutical industry. They're willing to trade your life for their profits, in my view. They can get away with it because, again, there's no big event. People are dying separately and quietly, and many of the people who are dying were in their old age anyway, right? They figure no one will blame the drug.

We have a disturbingly drug-addicted society here, folks. We've got to get back to health and basic nutrition by raising children with healthy, functioning nervous systems. If we don't do that, no amount of chemistry is going to save us. In fact, these chemicals are already responsible for untold pain, suffering and death in our society.

The solution is not more chemicals. The solution is to change the paradigm and get back to nutrition, healthy foods and disease prevention while getting the poisonous ingredients out of our food supply. If we don't do that, we're going to continue to be a society of violent criminals and degenerates -- a society of people who don't have good cognitive function and who are chemically dependant on a system of medicine that is actually killing them at a rate that makes the Vietnam War look like a Boy Scout skirmish in the woods.

That's the truth about modern medicine today. It's a crime against our own children, and if we are to have any real hope of surviving as a nation for another generation, this practice must be stopped.

Antidepressant Paxil found to double the risk of violent behavior
by NewsTarget

New British research has found that users of GlaxoSmithKline's antidepressant drug Paxil were twice as likely to experience violent behavior compared to patients taking placebo.
Researchers from Cardiff University in Britain and the Cochrane Centre examined data on Paxil -- or its generic form, paroxetine -- from GlaxoSmithKline, legal cases and emails from nearly 1,400 patients who responded to a British TV program on antidepressants. The researchers found that 60 out of 9,219 people taking Paxil -- 0.65 percent -- experienced a "hostility event," compared to 20 out of 6,455 patients taking placebo, or 0.31 percent.

Paxil is in a class of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitirs -- or SSRIs -- that recently came under fire from doctors who claimed it increased the risk of suicide in teenage users. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration concluded in 2004 that SSRIs caused teen and adult users to run higher risks of suicide, and ordered its strongest "black box" warning label on several SSRI drugs.

Researchers David Healthy, David Menkes and Andrew Herxheimer concluded in the online journal Public Library of Science-Medicine that although the risk of violence in Paxil takers was rare, it was a risk worthy of further study.

"The new issues highlighted by these cases [of violence] need urgent examination jointly by jurists and psychiatrists in all countries where antidepressants are used," they wrote.

"This finding helps explain why school shootings are almost always conducted by children who are taking antidepressants," explained Mike Adams, a consumer health advocate and critic of the overmedication of children. "We also know that SSRIs cause children to disconnect from reality. When you combine that with a propensity for violence, you create a dangerous recipe for school shootings and other adolescent violence," he said.

Children and teens taking antidepressants might be more likely to attempt, complete suicide (press release)
by NewsTarget

Antidepressant medications may be associated with suicide attempts and death in severely depressed children and adolescents but not in adults, according to an article in the August issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently began requiring drug manufacturers to include a warning regarding the risk of suicidal behavior among children and teens treated with antidepressants after a large analysis of clinical trials revealed a potential link. It is uncertain whether there is an association between treatment with antidepressants and suicidal behavior in adults, according to background information in the article. Because relatively few completed suicides occur, suicidal behavior is used instead in studies assessing the risks associated with antidepressant medications and few studies have examined the risk of suicide attempts or deaths in patients treated with antidepressants.

Mark Olfson, M.D., M.P.H., College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University Medical Center and New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, and colleagues analyzed the medical records of 5,469 Medicaid patients who were hospitalized for depression at least once in 1999 or 2000. The researchers first selected all cases of completed suicides (eight children and adolescents and 86 adults) and suicide attempts (263 children and adolescents, 521 adults). They then matched each case with one to five controls based on demographic information, period following hospital discharge, presence or absence of a suicide attempt prior to hospital admission, state of residence, other medication use and presence or absence of a substance abuse disorder.

Severely depressed children and adolescents ages 6 to 18 years were 1.5 times as likely to attempt suicide and also significantly more likely to complete suicide if they were treated with an antidepressant medication than if they were not treated with an antidepressant. More specifically, children and adolescents who died from suicide (eight cases) were more likely to have been treated with an SSRI antidepressant than their matched controls (39 controls, 37.5 percent vs. 7.7 percent). Among adults age 19 to 64 years, however, treatment with antidepressants was not associated with either suicide attempts or suicide deaths.

The link between completed suicides and antidepressants in young patients was based on only eight cases, and it is possible that the sickest children were more likely to be treated with such medications, skewing the results, the authors write. "With these caveats in mind, the present findings are consistent with the recommendations for careful clinical monitoring during the treatment of depressed children and adolescents with antidepressant medications," they conclude. "In practice, physicians face the difficult challenge of balancing safety concerns against evidence that depression is a key risk factor for adult and adolescent suicide and that antidepressant agents are effective for adult and adolescent depression." (Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2006;63:865-872. Available pre-embargo to the media at www.jamamedia.org.)

Contact: Craig LeMoult 212-305-0820 JAMA and Archives Journals

Are antidepressant drugs an accomplice in the Virginia Tech shootings?
by Mike Adams

The Chicago Tribune reports that Cho Seung Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter who killed 32 fellow students in a shooting rampage, was taking antidepressant drugs. This is not the first time a school shooting rampage has been linked to antidepressants. The infamous Colombine High shootings took place almost exactly eight years ago, and the shooters in that rampage were also -- you guessed it -- taking antidepressant drugs.

What is it about antidepressant drugs that provokes young men to pick up pistols, rifles and shotguns, then violently assault their classmates? Clearly, there's something wrong with the mind of anyone who engages in such violent acts. Could the drugs be "imbalancing" their minds, priming them for violence?

The answer is a very sobering, "Yes, they could be." As we reported in a previous NewsTarget article on Paxil:

Researchers from Cardiff University in Britain and the Cochrane Centre examined data on Paxil -- or its generic form, paroxetine -- from GlaxoSmithKline, legal cases and emails from nearly 1,400 patients who responded to a British TV program on antidepressants. The researchers found that 60 out of 9,219 people taking Paxil -- 0.65 percent -- experienced a "hostility event," compared to 20 out of 6,455 patients taking placebo, or 0.31 percent.

In that same article, published in September, 2006, I stated, "This finding helps explain why school shootings are almost always conducted by children who are taking antidepressants. We also know that SSRIs cause children to disconnect from reality. When you combine that with a propensity for violence, you create a dangerous recipe for school shootings and other adolescent violence."

Sadly, that explanation rings true once again with the Virginia Tech shooting. Wherever we see school violence, antidepressant drugs seem to found at the scene of the crime. The correlation is not coincidence. There is a causal link between the two.

The links between antidepressants and violence are well documented
A study published in the Public Library of Science Medicine (an open source medical journal) explored these same links in detail. (See Antidepressants and Violence: Problems at the Interface of Medicine and Law, by David Healy, Andrew Herxheimer, David B. Menkes)

The authors note that "Some regulators, such as the Canadian regulators, have also referred to risks of treatment-induced activation leading to both self-harm and harm to others" and the "United States labels for all antidepressants as of August 2004 note that 'anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, and mania have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants for major depressive disorder as well as for other indications, both psychiatric and nonpsychiatric'".

In other words, the link between antidepressants and violence has been known for years by the very people manufacturing, marketing or prescribing the drugs. As the author of the study mentioned above concluded, "The new issues highlighted by these cases need urgent examination jointly by jurists and psychiatrists in all countries where antidepressants are widely used."

That was last year, well before this latest shooting. The warning signs were there, and they've been visible for a long time. Medical authorities can hardly say they are "shocked" by this violent behavior. After all, the same pattern of violence among antidepressant takers has been observed, documented and published in numerous previous cases.

How to stop the violence
Following this recent episode of violence, some Americans are renewing calls for gun control. But I ask, isn't it time we looked at antidepressants control? Why do we continue to drug up young people in this country with psychotropic drugs that we know are closely associated with violent outbursts?

Giving young men antidepressant drugs is, in my opinion, just like building silent timebombs and waiting around for one to suddenly go off. Chemically assaulting these young, troubled brains with powerful drugs -- while denying them real mental health solutions based on nutrition -- is the bread and butter of modern psychiatry, an industry that in my opinion has sold its soul to drug companies and now serves primarily as a glorified system of legalized drug dealers that preys upon children and teenagers.

That doesn't mean the doctor or psychiatrist who prescribed the antidepressants is directly responsible for the violence committed by Cho Seung Hui, but they may have very well played a key role in destabilizing the mind of a young man who was on the verge of insanity. You don't give another shot of whisky to a drunk driver, and you shouldn't prescribe antidepressants to troubled young men.

How many more Americans will be killed by pharmaceuticals?
FDA-approved prescription drugs kill 100,000 Americans each year. Sadly, these 32 dead students at Virginia Tech now join the list of those killed by pharmaecutical side effects. And yet nobody in the mainstream media seems to be reporting about the drugs.

Don't you find it curious that when 100,000+ Americans are killed in their homes and beds each year, dying from heart attacks and strokes caused by pharmaceuticals, there's virtually no news coverage, but when mind-altering drugs cause a student to pick up guns and blow away 32 classmates, it's suddenly front-page news everywhere? The reason is because there's violence involved, and violence gets ratings for news organizations.

Another interesting point in all this is that a Korean diplomat contacted the Bush Administration to offer his condolences. Does this seem a bit strange to anyone else? The student was an American citizen, and he had lived in America for many years. In fact, he got put on antidepressant drugs in America, following the same fraudulent system of medicine that is uniquely American in the degree of harm it causes people. If anybody should be picking up the phone and apologizing, it's the U.S. diplomats who should be apologizing to the world for exporting death, disease and western medicine. Drug companies should be apologizing to the families of those who died, as well as to the family of the shooter. And the doctor or psychiatrist who prescribed these drugs to Cho Seung should be apologizing to everybody. Where is the apology from the drug companies who manufacture these chemicals that kill?

The question I'm asking is: Who's really at fault here? Sure, it's primarily the person who pulled the trigger. But it's also the companies and FDA regulators who allowed dangerous, violence-inducing chemicals to be prescribed to the person who pulled the trigger. "Chemically-induced violence," I call it. And antidepressant drugs make it so much easier for the shooter because they make people feel dissociated from reality. One of the Colombine shooters said it was all, "like a video game."

Or, as described in shocking detail in the PLoS Medicine study mentioned above, a 12 year old boy was being drugged with antidepressants when the following took place. As reported:

The independent forensic report on the case notes CP as saying that that night: "something told me to shoot them". He had initially reported this to be hallucinations and then said he thought it was his own thoughts. When asked to specifically describe what the experience was like, he said it was "like echoes in my head saying 'kill, kill', like someone shouting in a cave". According to the forensic report, "He reported this began happening after he went to bed…He reported he had never considered harming his grandparents before and this was unlike anything he had previously experienced. He reported that the voices were coming from inside his head and they bothered him so much that he got up. He reported that the voices continued until he killed his grandparents. He reported that he couldn't control himself and reported the echoes stopped after he shot his grandparents. He set fire to the house but could not explain these actions saying the thoughts just popped up". He then took a vehicle and began driving but reported that he had no idea where he was going and that it all felt like a dream. He recalled asking the police about his grandparents after he was picked up because he was not sure if it had really happened or not.

My heart goes out to those who died... ALL of them
Yes, I mourn the dead. Do not mistake my skeptical thinking with a lack of compassion for those individuals and families traumatized by this event. But unlike most tabloid reporters, I don't end my story with the 32 dead at Virginia Tech. I mourn the 100,000 Americans killed every year by FDA-approved prescription drugs, and the millions more killed all around the world by pharmaceuticals, regardless of whether they were killed in a headline-grabbing act of extreme violence. And unless we restrict the use of antidepressant drugs and find a way to help young men achieve genuine mental health through nutrition, sunlight, and avoidance of toxic chemicals, mark my words: We will see more antidepressant-induced violence in America.

The shootings will not stop until the pills are banned.

You can bank on it. The next attempted shooting is likely only days or weeks away.

If we want to end this violence, we must end the chemical warfare being waged against the minds of our young men and children by the drug companies.

Study summary:
Here's the summary of the study, mentioned above, published in PLoS Medicine:

Recent regulatory warnings about adverse behavioural effects of antidepressants in susceptible individuals have raised the profile of these issues with clinicians, patients, and the public. We review available clinical trial data on paroxetine and sertraline and pharmacovigilance studies of paroxetine and fluoxetine, and outline a series of medico-legal cases involving antidepressants and violence.

Both clinical trial and pharmacovigilance data point to possible links between these drugs and violent behaviours. The legal cases outlined returned a variety of verdicts that may in part have stemmed from different judicial processes. Many jurisdictions appear not to have considered the possibility that a prescription drug may induce violence.

The association of antidepressant treatment with aggression and violence reported here calls for more clinical trial and epidemiological data to be made available and for good clinical descriptions of the adverse outcomes of treatment. Legal systems are likely to continue to be faced with cases of violence associated with the use of psychotropic drugs, and it may fall to the courts to demand access to currently unavailable data. The problem is international and calls for an international response.

CAUSE AND EFFECT - THE VIRGINIA TECH TRAGEDY
By Lynn Stuter
NewsWithViews.com

In 1996, Barry Loukaitis walked into Frontier Junior High in Moses Lake, Washington, armed with a .30-.30 rifle and handguns stolen from his grandfathers’ home; he killed a teacher and two students, wounding a third. Loukaitis is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Media immediately targeted his embattled family. The parents were getting a divorce; there were allegations of domestic violence. A copy of the book The Rage by Steven King under a pseudo name was found by Loukaitis’ bed when police searched the home.

This was the first instance in which mainstream media took notice of the rising incidence of violence on school campuses. This was not, however, the first incident. Since 1991, the incidence of violence on school campuses had been on the increase nationwide.

On April 16, 2007, Cho Seung Hui, a senior at Virginia Tech, embarked on the worst massacre to occur on an American campus to date, killing over 30 people (the count seems to vary depending on the source), injuring many, then killing himself. The public was exposed to endless re-runs of the bizarre scene. It was rather amazing, considering the obvious zeal to sensationalize, that footage of the body of the gunman didn’t join the looping litany of re-runs. As a substitute they aired materials sent by Cho to NBC before his shooting rampage and ultimate suicide.

Enter the talking heads: why did Cho do this? what was the impetus? what was the cause? what was going on in his mind? The questions and talking heads have been endless. NBC’s 60 Minutes ran a segment on Sunday, April 22, 2007, in which it was divulged that the Secret Service has teamed up with the U.S. Department of Education in an attempt to “profile” potential shooters. The product of the team effort, in the form of a DVD, is now being dispensed to schools and universities across the United States.

But in all these so-called “experts” talk about, there are a couple of things they do not talk about, and what they aren’t talking about and why they aren’t talking about it should grab the attention of the public en masse.

What these so-called “experts” aren’t talking about is the fact that one whole generation of children have now been exposed, through their entire educational experience, to transformational systems education, intended not to educate them for intelligence but rather to inculcate them with the wanted attitudes, values and beliefs.

When transformational systems education first surfaced, the populace was told that this system of education represented a paradigm shift. Paradigm is defined as world view, how one perceives the world and the purpose of it; in other words, one’s religion or religious beliefs. Since this was a paradigm shift, a shift in religious world view, we needed to ask what world view were we shifting from and to. A study of history and our founding documents shows our nation was founded on the Christian world view. This was the world view from which our society was being shifted. To what world view were we then to be shifted? It soon became apparent that the world view to which we were being shifted was humanism/New Age.

The religion of humanism is man-made and man-centered, stating emphatically that “no deity will save us, we must save ourselves” (Humanist Manifesto I, 1933). It is the epitome of the mantra of the paradigm shift: “Creating the Future” — a term heard over and over again in the realm of the transformational process.

Unfortunately, if we each create our own futures according to our own passions, opinions and prejudices, civil turmoil will soon ensue. Therefore, we must subjugate individual rights to that of the collective of society. Enter total quality management (TQM) in business; the church growth movement (CGM) in churches; performance based budgeting (PBB) in government, and transformational systems education (aka, OBE, PBE and the plethora of other pseudonyms) in the schools. Transformational systems education is intended, specifically, to inculcate in children the wanted transformational Marxist attitudes, values, and beliefs.

Transformational systems education, what is happening inside every government school in the United States under the infamous Goals 2000, is not a natural process. It is the outreach of humanist psychologists and psychiatrists, men like,

B.F. Skinner—how to train a dog to slobber in five lessons or less; operant conditioning for children;

Abraham Maslow—father of the human potential movement and Third Force Psychology, adding the existentialist (New Age) spiritual dimension;

Carl Rogers—father of the self-actualization methodology;

Sidney Simon—the values clarification methodology of how to change a child’s belief system; being some, but not all, of the more prominent of the group.
Others, building upon the work of these men, in the realm of education, include John Goodlad, Howard Gardner, William Glasser; before them, John Dewey, socialist, signer of Humanist Manifesto I, promoter of transformational systems education or behaviorally oriented education.

Before this generation of humanist psychologists and psychiatrists seeking to understand that which will never be understood by mortal man — how the human mind really works — there were such degenerates as Sigmund Freud who was more than a little bit off upstairs. But his work, his writings, became the background for much that followed. During World War II, many transformational Marxists crossed the Atlantic from Germany, finding refuge in America; men like Kurt Lewin. In the foreword to the book The Change Agents Guide, Second Edition (Havelock, Ronald G; Educational Technology Publications; 1995), Matthew B. Miles wrote,

“The truth is that not until the late 1940’s, when American behavioral scientists began exploring and developing the ideas of the émigré psychologist Kurt Lewin, did we really have anything like a systematic science and practical craft of planned change in the kinds of social systems that matter most—families, small groups, organizations, communities.” (page vii)

And, of course, as so many have written about before, the “science” of planned change in attitudes, values and beliefs is centered around the Hegelian Dialectic; Hegel being a mentor of the communist, Karl Marx.

Antithetical to the Christian belief that man has a sin nature, therefore the need for a Higher Authority—the Creator—God who created man and gave His only begotten Son that man might be saved from his sin nature, humanism believes that man evolved (from what has never been stated) and is essentially good. Before he died, Abraham Maslow stated that his work was based on the false premise that man is essentially good; before he died, Carl Rogers denounced his work as a failure. That, however, did not dissuade those, realizing the potential man-centered religion had for achieving power and position over others, from abandoning their evil pursuit of the same. And what better way to do that than to produce generation after generation of un-educated, dumbed-down children?

When Barry Loukaitis walked into Frontier Junior High in 1996, few knew that the Moses Lake School District, situated in central Washington, had been immersed since the early 90’s in transformational systems education via the Schools for the 21st Century Pilot Program for Goals 2000, implemented in Washington State in 1989. Other states also participated in this pilot program. Is it a coincidence that school violence coalesced the implementation of this program? At the time, I told my Washington Legislators that due to the fact that transformation systems education was not normal, was not conducive to producing a healthy mind, that Moses Lake was just the start of what was to come IF they did nothing to reverse the damage already done. However, the legislature, not only in Washington State, but legislatures nation-wide, bought into Goals 2000, transformational systems education, and the incidence of school shootings has been on the rise ever since, even since Columbine when it was decided that the mainstream media would no give such attention to school shootings.

Now an entire generation of children have been subjected to transformational systems education, have graduated secondary and entered higher education. It is not coincidence that the trend in violence, associated with the unnatural bending of young minds, would follow.

With the school shooting in Springfield, Oregon, in May 1998, a short year before the April 20, 1999, Columbine Massacre, another aspect of the school shooters became so apparent that it could not be ignored by anyone who truly cared: the fact that an increasing number of shooters had been on or were currently on prescription anti-depressants. It was not long before it was reported that Cho Seung Hui, the shooter at Virginia Tech, was also rumored to have been on a prescription anti-depressants.

But nothing, absolutely nothing has been or is being said about this increasing and obvious factor. Why? Enter The President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health established by the executive order of President George W Bush in 2002, from which emanated, in 2004, a proposal for the comprehensive mental health screening of every man, woman and child in this country. Since the publishing of the report of the New Freedom Commission, we have seen newscast after newscast, program after program, advocate for the mental health screening of the American populace; some even advocating the screening of children under two.

The same report of The President’s New Freedom Commission cites Columbia Universities TeenScreen® computer questionnaire as a “valid and reliable instrument” in identifying suicidal tendencies and mental health issues in teens. According to TeenScreen® literature, those deemed to have suicidal tendencies or mental defects are referred to mental health professionals—psychologists and psychiatrists. Research, not by the government, but by American citizens, produced a study published in 2004 by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in which it is stated 84 of every 100 children screened by TeenScreen® are falsely identified as having suicidal tendencies or other mental problems. These children are then referred to professional clinicians where anti-depressants are prescribed, more times than not; the same anti-depressants that carry a FDA black-box warning that they can cause suicide ideation and violent tendencies!

First these children are subjected to a system of education which is unnatural and intended to change their attitudes, values, and beliefs; then they are subjected to a bogus mental health evaluation with an 84% chance of a false positive, referred to clinicians were they are, more times than not, put on anti-depressants that can cause suicide ideation and violent tendencies. And we wonder why these kids are killing themselves and others?

Why is this not being talked about? Because the whole of it, the education system and the push to put people on anti-depressants, is coming right out of the United States government, socialist/communist Democrat and fascist Republican alike. The pharmaceutical lobby on Capitol Hill is one of the most lucrative sources of campaign funds for politicians; and it is the pharmaceutical companies who are reaping the profits of the growing number of young people put on prescription anti-depressants.

And face it, the more people killed by school shooters, the more ammunition the government has to repeal the Second Amendment! If they can get our guns away from us, then they can number us all like the Nazi’s did and we can all work in exchange for enough food to keep us productive! Useless eaters—the old and the infirm—will be exterminated!

Does the government—state or federal—really care if this system is creating killers who prey on others? Only to the extent that the gun doesn’t get pointed at them. To that end, they live behind barricades, that they might be protected from the “unwashed masses” who might intend them harm.

The sooner the American people come to the realization that the out-of-control rogue United States Government cares not one whit for the health, well-being or general welfare of the average American, the more apt we are to save our nation.

Do "Gun-Free" Zones Encourage School Shootings?
By Larry Elder
Thursday, October 18, 2007

This time, Cleveland: a 14-year-old suspended high school student entered Cleveland's Success Tech Academy, a gun in each hand, and opened fire, wounding four. Later, we learn that the shooter's past included violent confrontations, mental problems and at least one previous suspension. A month earlier he told a friend that he intended to shoot up the school. But no one, apparently, took his behavior seriously enough to notify authorities.

Meanwhile, a high school teacher in Oregon, with a permit to carry a concealed weapon plus training, sought permission to carry her firearm to school. In fear of her ex-husband, against whom she filed and received two restraining orders, she wanted the ability to protect herself in the event he showed up. Furthermore, she argued that even without the fear of her ex-husband, the Second Amendment and Oregon state law allow her to carry her firearm to work. Her school district, however, prevents her from carrying a firearm to school.

This raises a question. Do shooters consider schools "gun-free zones"? Do they consider it unlikely that any authority figure -- whether teachers or, in some cases, security guards -- poses an armed threat? But in some school shooting cases, guns helped to end shooting sprees and minimize loss of life and injury.

Edinboro, Pennsylvania. A 14-year-old middle school student opened fire at a school graduation dance, being held at a local restaurant. The shooter killed one teacher and wounded two students and another teacher. The armed teenager was apprehended by the restaurant owner, who grabbed his own shotgun from his office and went after the shooter. Staring into the owner's shotgun, the teen dropped his gun and surrendered.

Pearl, Mississippi. A 16-year-old sophomore entered Pearl High with a hunting rifle under his overcoat. He opened fire, killing two students and wounding seven. The assistant principal, Joel Myrick, ran to his truck and retrieved the .45 automatic he kept there. Running back, he spotted the shooter in the parking lot. Ordering the teen to stop, the vice principal put his gun to the shooter's neck and held him until police arrived.

Grundy, Virginia: at Appalachian Law School, a disgruntled student on the verge of his second suspension entered a school building and shot and killed the dean and a professor. He then shot four students, killing one. Hearing the shots fired, two students, Michael Gross and Tracy Bridges, ran to their cars to retrieve their guns. With guns aimed at the shooter, Bridges ordered him to drop his weapon. When the shooter turned and saw Bridges' gun, he laid down his weapon and put his hands in the air. (My pro-Second Amendment documentary, "Michael and Me," goes into detail about this incident, as well as others.)

Professor and economist John Lott checked 280 separate news stories in the week after the Appalachian Law School shooting, and only found four that mentioned the students who stopped the shooter had guns. The Washington Post, for example, said the students "helped subdue" the killer. Newsday wrote the shooter was "restrained by students." The Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, however, wrote that the shooter "was wrestled to the ground by fellow students, one of whom aimed his own revolver at [the killer]." Four months later, the Times-Dispatch detailed the students' actions, including the second student's use of a gun.

What do felons think about an armed citizenry? A survey of convicted felons by the National Institute of Justice found 74 percent of the felons agreed that, "One reason burglars avoid houses when people are home is that they fear being shot during the crime." The survey also asked these felons whether they had abandoned at least one crime because they feared the intended victim might be armed. Thirty-nine percent said they abandoned at least one crime; 8 percent had abandoned such a crime "many" times; 34 percent admitted being "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"; and nearly 70 percent knew a "colleague" who had abandoned a crime, been scared off, been shot at, wounded or captured by a victim packing heat.

A survey of 23,113 police chiefs and sheriffs across the country found that 62 percent of these top cops agreed that "a national concealed handgun permit would reduce rates of violent crime." About 80 percent of rank-and-file police officers, according to polls, support the right of trained citizens to carry concealed weapons.

Israel gets it. Since the 1970s, on school campuses in Israel, policy requires teachers and parent aides to arm themselves with semi-automatic weapons. The result? School shootings have plummeted to zero.

As for Cleveland, would allowing authority figures to arm themselves have resulted in reduced casualties, or perhaps even deterred the shooter in the first place? No one can say for sure. But no doubt at least some Cleveland parents now believe the benefits of armed campus adults outweigh the costs.

AT THE ROOT OF EDUCATION REFORM
By Lynn Stuter
November 6, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

In 1997, Craig Roberts wrote, in his book, The Medusa File, page 90:

"… certain segments of the population must be programmed to be robotic drones, incapable or unwilling to think on their own. In this scenario, the “individual” is the enemy of the state. Individual thinking and choice are not conducive to “peace and progress” and not permitted. Only by being part of “The Team,” can the individual (follower) accomplish objectives or “outcomes.” Of course, these “objectives and outcomes” are directed by the bureaucracy. This phase of population training is currently being accomplished by the public school system with such programs as “outcomes based education,” and the introduction of New Ageism into the classroom. One has to remember that Adolf Hitler pioneered a similar tactic with his Hilterjugend and state-sponsored school system. To quote the Fuhrer, “When an opponent declares: ‘I will not come over to your side,’ I calmly say ‘your child belongs to me already. Who are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing but this new community.’”

How could we possibly think that the system of education, implemented in the United States under Goals 2000, is the same system of education that produced the mentality that became Germany under Hitler?

To understand fully, we must go back in time to Plato, and follow his philosophy as it transpired through his disciples: Kant, Hegel, and Marx, to the philosophy and mindset of the men who influenced the social scientists of pre-Hitler and Hitler Germany. This is covered, in great detail in Leonard Peikoff’s book, Ominous Parallels. Also covered, in great detail, is the fact that the United States, as established, was established on the philosophy and teachings of Aristotle — the antidote of Plato.

What most American people do not know is that following World War II, many of the Nazis social scientists who served under Hitler were brought to the United States by the CIA via Operation Paperclip. The fact that they were Nazis, had served under Hitler, had participated in war crimes (some of the most heinous nature), were avowed Nazis, was expunged by the CIA (while high-level government officials looked the other way) from their files to get them into this country.

Once in the United States, the knowledge and ideas of these social scientists was put to work, only this time in the United States; these men became professors in universities, worked in behavioral science laboratories, and became practitioners in the social science field (psychology, psychiatry). Their writings and theories influenced the direction of social science in the United States, social science being the backbone of education in the government schools and what teachers are taught in colleges and universities today.

At this point it would be ludicrous to claim that these men were wholly responsible for the direction social science has taken in the United States. The philosophy of Plato and Kant, those who built upon their critique of reason, has been influencing social science in the United States for as far back as Wundt and the Leipzig connection of the 1870’s. What is important is that this same philosophy set the stage for Hitler; it also set the stage for bringing these men to the United States from Nazi Germany.

The result has been the transformation of America via the Hegelian Dialectic; Hegel also being a disciple of Plato and Kant, their subjectivism and relativism.

In his book, Ominous Parallels, Leonard Peikoff, protégé of Ayn Rand, spoke of the education system of Germany during Hitler’s rise to power and how that system produced violent children; how that system produced the men who went on to become Hitler’s feared Gestapo and SS, men capable of inflicting grossly inhumane and violent behavior on others. The men who produced that system of education then came to the United States under Operation Paperclip, bringing their philosophy, teachings, and ideas with them to influence what would be implemented here.

And we wonder why we have violent children without a conscience, who take guns to school and kill other children and teachers, who join gangs, who can kill without remorse? And we wonder why, with the implementation of education reform in the schools of the United States since the early 1990’s, we have seen a spike in juvenile violence?

Some of the Nazi’s who came to this country, under Operation Paperclip, went to work for the CIA in the field of mind control, involved in such as Operation Artichoke, Operation MK/SEARCH, Operation MK/ULTRA, Operation Monarch, and Operation Bluebird — all CIA mind control programs experimenting, among other atrocities, with the use of drugs in the re-programming of the human mind. One CIA scientist, Dr Frank Olsen, after being given LSD without his knowledge, died after falling from a hotel window. Whether he committed suicide or was murdered, his family was kept in the dark, under the cloak of “national security,” for years about what really happened to him.

Coupled with what children are being taught in the government schools (in the name of producing a child capable of demonstrating mastery of government ordained, behaviorally-oriented, exit outcomes, just as one would train an animal), many of the children who have turned into killers have been found to be have taken in the past, or were currently taking, anti-depressant drugs with mind-altering capabilities. The incidence of anti-depressants being prescribed for children is rampant; the same being augmented by programs like TeenScreen set up to screen children for mental disorders (as established by the American Psychiatric Association) such as suicide, social phobia and shyness with referrals to mental health professionals where anti-depressants are too often prescribed without justification.

In the Operation MK/SEARCH program, children were re-programmed to lie, steal, spy, sabotage, kill and even commit suicide. (Roberts; page 86) Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (Columbine High School) and Cho Seung-Hui (Virginia Tech) all committed suicide. Likewise, all had been on or were currently on anti-depressant drugs at the time they went on a shooting rampage. Many of the school shooters have been found to have been on prescription anti-depressants drugs, past or present, including Kip Kinkle who killed his parents before continuing his shooting rampage at school.

Yet as America follows the path of Hitler and Nazi Germany, the American people continue to believe the spike in violence among today’s youth is not coming right out of government schools; has nothing to do with prescription anti-depressants. But then most American’s also have no knowledge of Operation Paperclip or the mind control programs of the CIA that have root in the mind control programs of Nazi Germany.

But the American leaders would never do something like this to the American people. They wouldn’t? One only need to consider that the Franklin cover-up — involving child pedophilia, prostitution and pornography — led to people in the highest levels of government with connections to law enforcement, the FBI and the CIA, to realize that “yes, they would.” The philosophy that can justify this kind of behavior is the same philosophy invading our schools in the name of education reform.

God bless America? What do you suppose God sees when he looks down on this land of people who willfully look the other way while the most innocent, the weakest, the most defenseless among us — the children — are treated in this manner? What do you suppose God thinks when he sees Christians sending their children to the government schools to be subjected to this barbarism? What do you suppose God thinks when he sees teachers in the government schools who claim to be Christians?

The Bible, in at least three chapters, speaks to the fate of those who harm His children:

“But whoso shall offend one of these little ones who believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6, KJV)

“And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.” (Mark 9:42, KJV)

“It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.” (Luke 17:2, KJV)

God speaks not idly.

The American people would do well to seriously reconsider their support of this “new” system of education that has roots is something so demonic, so evil.

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PUBLIC SCHOOLS, PUBLIC MENACE:
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How public schools indoctrinate children with anti-parent, anti-American, and anti-Judeo-Christian values.
How public schools expose innocent children to often shocking sexual material in so-called sex-education classes.
How public schools pressure parents to give their children potentially dangerous, mind-altering drugs.
Why low-income minority parents should not pin their hopes on vouchers, charter schools, or the No Child Left Behind law.

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On April 17, 1997, the Clinton's held a White House Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning.  This Conference signaled the White House blessing on yet another attack on the family.  The managed economy of the systems philosophy is truly "womb to tomb." 

The links below take the reader through but some of the material on the "early childhood brain development/early childhood learning" war being waged on the American family.  In reading the material posted here, please remember the following quotes:

We must remove the children from the crude influence of their families.  We must take them over and, to speak frankly, nationalize them.  From the first days of their lives they will be under the healthy influence of Communist children's nurseries and schools.  There they will grow up to be real Communists. — Congress of Communist Party educators, 1918

Give me the children, I will give you a nation. — Hitler, 1939

When an opponent declares 'I will not come over to your side', I calmly say 'Your child belongs to us already.  What are you?  You will pass on.  Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp.  In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.' — Hitler, 1939

A Recipe For Violence

It COULD happen anywhere!  Youthful violence, that is.

In reaction to the recent shooting spree in Littleton, CO, this is a warning from an engineer-turned-educator that such an incident could happen anywhere in the U.S., not because of the availability of guns but rather because of psychologically perverse public school policies and practices, emanating from the U.S. Department of Education or its various "laboratories," promulgated in varying degrees nationwide.  Examining them in combination, you will see that they comprise a "RECIPE FOR VIOLENCE!"

The problem is NOT GUNS, but deteriorating youth behaviors.  Trends of increased violence at younger ages are being deceptively touted as an excuse for "gun-grabbing" legislation; but the violence is surfacing in other ways.  And kids have always had access to guns, especially in the South and West.  I, and all my friends, carried pocket knives (no restrictions on blade size), and played games with them in the schoolyard.  With all the spats and squabbles, using one of those knives as a weapon was never an option.  In the next generation also, my son carried a pocket knife and recalls being beaten up by a bully in elementary school, and says today that it was not that using his knife defensively was consciously rejected, the THOUGHT NEVER EVEN OCCURRED!

The truth is that kids have changed — and a lot of it is ATTRIBUTABLE TO SCHOOL CURRICULUM!  In educators' frequent hand-wringing over rising violence, they like to blame all such on TV, society, etc., but avoid facing evidence that defective reading, language, and vocabulary programs have depressed communication skills thereby sabotaging skills needed to resolve conflicts.  If people who confront/conflict can't communicate, their interaction is more likely to turn physical.

Worse yet, studies at the U.S. Department of Justice in the 1980's by Michael Brunner, on educational factors affecting incarcerated juveniles, found direct linkages between illiteracy and violent behavior.  Sociological studies of background factors of violent felons showed the strongest statistical link to be FAILURE TO LEARN TO READ — stronger than poverty, drugs, broken homes, etc!  Said statistical link, in the light of Pavlov's experiments on animals and humans under sustained frustration, Brunner believes to be causal.  Brunner's work resulted in a book, Retarding America - The Imprisonment of Potential (Halcyon House, 1993).

In Suffolk County (NY), we have a "ticking time-bomb" example of the "recipe:"  Suffolk has:

the highest incarceration rate in NY state of 16 -20-year olds;
the highest (except for NYC) arrest rate of 10 - 16-year olds;
an overcrowded jail, where the majority of prisoners are illiterate;
large numbers of youth on probation and community service who can't read;
the highest (except for NYC) high school dropout rate;
colleges and professional schools where freshmen who can't read at college level have been near 40 percent for at least the last six years;
teacher-training colleges turning out teachers who can't teach reading, giving Masters' degrees in reading without even one phonics course;
high-tech businesses whose most frequent complaint is a lack of skilled workers (often meaning persons who can't follow written directions);
the highest rate of drug arrests, and youth in alcohol programs, despite the highly-touted DARE program which makes everyone feel good but cannot be proven to reduce drug usage.
Most of the above relate directly to the systemic literacy problem.  I have started a literacy program for youth on Probation or Community Service because we found virtually all to be either special-ed cases or identified low achievers.  We have 14 - 18 -year-olds with reading levels from ZERO to fifth grade, sometimes getting NO reading instruction in school.  We train volunteer tutors in Orton-Gillingham multisensory phonics, match them up with desperate kids – who DO progress in reading.  All this is not to denigrate the work of dedicated local teachers, but to point out the futility of their efforts in a flawed system in which they, themselves, are also victims.  The crucial issue is what is happening to the children.

Other ingredients of the "recipe" are psychologically tainted curriculum "strands," each of which gives children a nudge toward violent or irresponsible behaviors.

"Attitudes and Feelings" Focus vs Brain Development

Aside from moral and cultural questions of what attitudes should be taught, curriculum practices emphasizing feelings instead of logical thinking train the brain inappropriately:  Neurobiologist Dr. David Goodman states (Learning From Lobotomy, HUMAN BEHAVIOR, January, 1978) that rather than studying the brain in terms of left and right hemispheres, it is more enlightening to analyze it as being divided crosswise into fore- and aft-brain functional regions.

The aft-brain includes the regions of senses and feelings, whereas the fore-brain frontal lobes provide control functions:  long-term planning, logical reasoning, inhibiting of impulses, self-control, tolerance for delayed gratification, etc., the functions we associate with maturation.  So, as brain areas develop in rough proportion to their usage, students taught to pay more attention to their feelings than to rational thinking and self-control will have under-developed frontal lobes, making impulsive and violent behaviors more likely.

Values Clarification, Decision-Making, & "Critical" Thinking

The majority of these kinds of activity are based on the "non-directive" therapies of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, who admitted to problems with their use on children.  Children are encouraged to adopt "values" for themselves — even if different from those of their parents — and to try making their own decisions on matters of life and death — that there are no "right" or "wrong" decisions, just "different" ones — with inadequate knowledge of consequences.

Studies have shown that children undergoing the above types of courses under the rubric of drug- or sex-education tended to be MORE experimental than students who received no training at all.  Dr. William Coulson, a colleague of Maslow & Rogers, has been criss-crossing the nation apologizing to the American people for that period of psychological work, and explaining why it is harmful to children:

"Decision-Making":  Some of the procedures lead children to believe they can use a 5-step "decision-making" process to make their own decisions on matters of life and death, e.g., whether or not to "experiment."  (Or maybe whether or not to shoot at schoolmates, or abandon an unwanted fetus.)  Step 1 is, "State the problem."  Step two is,  Examine the alternatives."  "For the child who has been taught abstention," Dr. Coulson says, "the word 'alternatives' leaps off the page like a flaming sword!  What's the alternative to abstention?"

The Magic Circle:  When the chairs are placed in a circle and the teacher steps outside, students are encouraged to exchange innermost thoughts about sex, drugs, lying, cheating, masturbation, etc.  In such situations the extremes of peer personalities begin to interact:  At one end of the scale is the naive, dutiful, obedient child; at the other, the aggressive, assertive, experimental child.  Coulson rhetorically asks, "In such settings, which child is the more likely to influence the other?  The system is psychologically designed to bring down the dutiful, obedient child."

The Cheapening of Human Life

In the midst of exhortations to save whales, seals, snail-darters, etc. are death and suicide education (kids visit cemeteries, write their own epitaphs, discuss suicide), lifeboat problems (Who would you throw out?), environmental studies which paint humans as "the problem," books such as The Giver (about one who executes unwanted babies), and the euphemization of abortion as "choice" (Does the fetus have a choice?).  All of these cheapen the sanctity of human life.  Is it any wonder that teen-agers can shoot at other persons, or abandon a new-born and return to the prom, and later admit only that "Mistakes were made?"

The Self-Esteem Scam

Though we are told that raising kids' self-esteem enhances learning, experiments to prove it have been UNsuccessful.  In my own experience, I saw many improved behaviors and attitudes and self-confidence as a RESULT of successes in learning.  The psychotherapeutic value of a successful learning experience is grossly under-estimated by educators who should know better.  They have the cart before the horse.  Artificially inflating an non-achieving kid's ego, without giving him an inner means to nourish it, is more likely to produce arrogance and complacency than studiousness.  A little humility helps.

Cooperative or Group Learning

Aside from the fact that any teacher worth his/her salt can teach new concepts better and quicker than kids can teach each other, consider the effect on respect for teachers vs catering to peer pressure.  Remember the teachers YOU respected the most were the ones who TAUGHT you something.  Now replace that by kids getting 10 years of group learning by high school, and the respect has diverted away from teachers and toward the peer-group.  Could these spawn gangs?  Do teachers complain, "I don't get no respect?"  Re-examine group learning.

Social Promotions Deceive

When reading programs started to go non-phonetic (circa 70 years ago!) the increase in failures posed a problem.  The system "solved" the problem by promoting children who cannot read, touting the theory that "holding them back would damage their psyches!"  By graduating kids who can't read their diplomas, we condition them that performance does not matter.  By "protecting" them from failure, we have guaranteed it.  When the workplace rejects them, rosy illusions become anger and alienation.

A RECIPE for VIOLENCE

Combine a tad of TV titillation, plus defective communication skills, plus overstimulated feeling centers and under-developed regulatory lobes, plus ignorance, plus arrogance — the illusion of power to choose one's own values, un-fettered by worries of bad or wrong decisions — plus the perception that human life is expendable:  mix them all together with the frustration of drowning in a sea of print while unable to read it, and you have A RECIPE FOR VIOLENCE!

Revisiting the reading problem, high-tech companies complain of difficulty in finding technically-qualified employees.  That is consistent with the findings of the American Institute of Physics in their 1989 report, Who Takes Science? which showed clearly that the students who enroll in physics and chemistry are the good READERS!

The public probably believes that if children spent more time in school they would have less inclination to be violent.  But, in a 1980 PARADE article (copy available), a Florida sheriff blames the schools for most of the violence, and a Department of Justice official notes that incidents of violence go DOWN in the summer — and back up in September!  Also consider that all the shooting sprees have been in schools.  If kids just wanted to kill, they could go to a shopping center or a church!

To round out the perspective, consider also the Department of Justice data showing our prison population is at an all-time high of about 1.7 million inmates — MOSTLY ILLITERATE — and growing slightly faster than 7 percent per year.  At that rate, it will double about every ten years!  In 1995, it was 1 million; so by 2005 we'll have two million, by 2015 four million, etc.  Can we afford to build prisons fast enough to keep up?  Should we?  Is this any way to run a country?  Is this "a kinder, gentler, (smarter?) nation?"

Can we get some caring citizens interested in REAL violence prevention?

Twelve Rules for Raising Delinquent Children

The following has been attributed to the Houston Police Department, who supposedly put out a pamphlet with the above title, and listing the following rules of raising a delinquent child.  The rules were then picked up and published in the local Chamber of Commerce publication called Business:

1.      Begin with infancy to give the child everything he wants.  In this way he will grow up to believe the world owes him a living.

2.      When he picks up bad words, laugh at him.  This will make him think he's cute.  It will also encourage him to pick up "cuter phrases" that will blow off the top of your head later.

3.      Never give him any spiritual training.  Wait until he is 21, and then let him "decide for himself."

4.      Avoid the use of the word "wrong."  It may develop a guilt complex.  This will condition him to believe later, when he is arrested for stealing a car, that society is against him and he is being persecuted.

5.      Pick up everything he leaves lying around—books, shoes, clothes.  Do everything for him so that he will be experienced in throwing all responsibility on others.

6.      Let him read any printed matter he can get his hands on.  Be careful that the silverware and drinking glasses are sterilized, but don't worry about his mind feasting on garbage.

7.      Quarrel frequently in the presence of your children.  In this way they will not be too shocked when the home is broken up later.

8.      Give the child all the spending money he wants.  Never let him earn his.  Why should he have things as tough as you did?

9.      Satisfy his every craving for food, drink, and comfort.  See that every sensual desire is gratified.  Denial may lead to harmful frustration.

10.    Take his part against neighbors, teachers, policemen.  They are all prejudiced against your child.

11.    When he gets into real trouble, apologize to yourself by saying, "I never could do anything with him!"

12.    Prepare yourself for a life of grief.  You'll surely have it.

Can Parents Be Both The Boss & The Buddy To Their Children?

Being able to balance being the 'boss' as well as your child's 'buddy' is absolutely necessary for a healthy parent child relationship. Some experts teach that we should always be the boss and never play the role of buddy. Others suggest that your son or daughter should be your best friend. Both extremes are unhealthy.

Your child should never be in doubt as to who is the boss.Personally speaking, when growing up, the times I felt my dad was my buddy were those rare and wonderful moments we spent gardening or fishing. I knew he was the boss; there was no doubt about that in our family. But for those magical moments, he was also my friend.The problem is that one without the other gives a dangerous imbalance. If you make an attempt to be your child's best friend above everything else, you will relinquish your ability to be an effective parent, able to wield authority when needed. If you refuse to accept the role of friend on occasion, you relinquish the chance to show love in a special way and to stand close to your children in their unguarded moments. Most parents have no trouble playing the role of boss but find it difficult to take the time to be a friend. Children do not respond to rules; they respond to relationships. It's true that you can get your children to "behave" by enforcing the rules. You can control your children to a certain point by running a tight ship, but that doesn't necessarily mean you are getting their loving and obedient response. What you are getting is their reaction, which may look like obedience on the surface, but beneath there is fear, frustration, and anger. Unless you establish a loving, accepting relationship with your child, you can almost count on trouble down the line. How Do You Balance Punishment & Praise?Punishment is a method of teaching principle - not a tool for revenge. Keeping that in mind will often make it easier to decide what (and whether) punishment should be handed out. If you use punishment simply as a deterrent ("and if you ever do that again, you know what will happen to you"), it will stop being effective when your kid figures out a way to keep you from finding out. But if it is used both as a deterrent and as a way to teach your child principles, the inner conviction that develops will stand even when the enforcer is not around. Here are two overriding rules to keep in mind:

1. First, punishment should always be carried out when you are under control. The minute you find out that your thirteen-year-old son took the car for a joyride may not be the best time to decide the sentence. Twenty years of hard labor in a foreign country may seem entirely appropriate to you at that moment; an hour or two later, when you've cooled off, you'll probably realize that five years would be plenty.With smaller children, it's often necessary to respond immediately, so that they can connect the punishment with the behavior. It's still important to keep control. A broken cookie jar may enrage you, but the child had no idea of the importance of the cookie jar. Express your displeasure about the sneaky action of stealing cookies, then wait until you've cooled down a bit about the cookie jar before taking action.

2. Second, avoid punishing older children (from about school age up) in front of friends if possible. You will never meet a child who didn't feel that a family trust was being violated by public punishment. You will also never meet a child who didn't try at one time or other to get away with bad behavior in the presence of others. Unless the child is clearly being manipulative, try to do your correction in private. If you're being manipulated, do your correction on the spot -- and then make it clear that your action was necessitated by your child's manipulative behavior. Another reason to avoid public punishment is that we parents can't always trust ourselves to maintain control over our emotions in that situation. We're often so embarrassed by our children's behavior and by how it reflects on us that the punishment can cease to be punishment for principles violated and become revenge for our embarrassment.

Waliz
http://partnerforlife.blogspot.com/2007/08/can-parents-be-both-boss-buddy-to-their.html

Experts: 'Buddy' Parents No Friends to Kids
By Liza Porteus

The usual response to incidents like the Illinois hazing melee -- at least among most tongue-clucking adults -- generally runs along the lines of "Where were the parents?"

But what happens if, as may have been the case here, the parents were out buying the booze for the underage drinking bash?

"It's not just that you're helping the kid out because they need a couple of beers for a party," said Dr. Roger McIntire, author of books including, Teenagers and Parents: 10 Steps for a Better Relationship. "It's the message that is behind that - the message was that these kinds of overindulgences are acceptable."

The issue has struck a nerve among those who believe many parents may be more worried about being a buddy than a father or mother to their teens -- to the detriment of both the kids' development and the strength of the family. Experts generally agree that parents aren't doing their children any favors when they buy underage drinkers beer in an effort to win affection or popularity.

"It's an extension of the same type of parent who ... would consider having graduation parties and serving alcohol to kids and saying, 'Oh, I'm taking keys,' and considering they are being the cool parents, actually thinking they should be voted parents of the year," said family therapist Carleton Kendrick, author of Take Out Your Nose Ring, Honey, We're Going to Grandma's. "It is more important for them to be perceived as cool than it is for being a parent."

School administrators in Northbrook, Ill., on Monday ordered the suspension of several girls involved in the now-infamous May 4 "powder puff" incident. But officials also made clear they had limited jurisdiction in the case, which was not a school event.

Police continue to investigate reports that at least some parents were involved, and are expected to file criminal charges this week."This is about the personal responsibility of the parents to do their job as parents and to make sure that their children are behaving appropriately," attorney Mark Smith told Fox News' Hannity and Colmes last week.

But defense attorney Mel Sachs argued that shifting blame to the parents doesn't hold their kids accountable. "Children have to learn to be responsible themselves," he said. "It's very easy to shift the burden to the parents. We can't allow that to happen."

Some experts insist parents must still be held accountable, at whatever level. "I cannot imagine what was in the minds of these parents if they helped provide these kids with those animal entrails and excrement and not asking what this was all about," Kendrick said.

The Partnership for a Drug Free America recently launched an ad campaign encouraging parents to act less like friends and more like adults. In the ads, parents ask kids many questions about where they're going, who they will be with and when they're coming home, in an effort to show they care and to make sure their teens know what's expected of them.

"We advise parents that kids have friends, they need parents," said organization spokesman Howard Simon. "It's important for parents to remember their kids, whether they admit it or not, are looking for you to set rules and boundaries - it's probably the single most important job you have in your life.

"It's great to have your kid like you and we understand the desire to want to be that but at the same time, your kids need you to give you the rules on how to guide your behavior."

Olaunda Williams, youth director for The Partners to Reduce Underage Drinking in North Carolina, said a trend is beginning to emerge where parents are held accountable by the justice system for providing alcohol. North Carolina has a "huge problem" of parents buying beer for their underage teens, she said.

"They feel like they're being responsible parents as long as they take the car keys," Williams said. "We want them to understand they are breaking the law. Parents need to understand this behavior is illegal, it shouldn't be tolerated."

McIntire said parents should give their children kudos for a job well done and praise their positive attributes, not for aiding and abetting illegal behavior."If you try to be a friend to your child, the way to do it is to show some admiration for some things that they do, not to try to come in on the side of liking the same music or using the same lingo or otherwise trying to fit in with them and their friends," he said. "I think it's better to take the high road."

Source: Fox News

LOVE & MONEY; Out of the Classroom, Back in the House
By ELLYN SPRAGINS

Dear Kids,

Now that you're both in college, we would like to make one thing perfectly clear. We do not plan to support you endlessly. We do not want you to move back home after college. We expect you to find a job, live on your own and, if you want to go to graduate school, pay for it yourself.

We know you can do it.

Love always, Mom and Dad

Thirty or 40 years ago, putting these expectations into words would have been unnecessary. College graduation meant adulthood and independence. End of story. These days, parents who dare to express such sentiments risk seeming like unfeeling brutes. When your 21-year-old complains that ''everyone else's parents'' are welcoming their college graduates back home, they're about half right. With jobs scarce for the third consecutive year, more than 60 percent of college students surveyed in March by MonsterTRAK, a job-posting Web site for students and college graduates, said they planned to live with their parents after graduation, 40 percent of them for more than a year.

Call me an unfeeling brute, but I think I know what that picture looks like: the family car missing when you need it, empty yogurt containers and pizza boxes strewn around the house and a sleeping body on the family-room couch until lunchtime each day. How do parents, who might have expected some physical and financial breathing room after their children finished college, tolerate it? And how do young adults, accustomed to living independently, handle parental intrusion?

In many cases, surprisingly well on both sides. Some parents are so accommodating that they welcome home not only a son or a daughter, but also a son's girlfriend or a daughter's boyfriend. Amber Janke, 24, who graduated from Chapman University in Orange, Calif., last year, lived for two months with her boyfriend's parents in Buena Park, Calif., before finding a job in March at the conference services department of the university. Her hosts didn't ask her to pay for anything, but she and her boyfriend pitched in by cleaning the downstairs portion of the house. She and her boyfriend, who is 27, now live in their own apartment in La Habra, Calif., but she says she feels much closer to his parents as a result of the experience.

Brandon Long, 22, graduated from the University of Virginia in May and has been living with his girlfriend, Sheree Twiddy, at her parents' home in Chesapeake, Va. While he looks for a job, Ms. Twiddy, a nursing student, has been working at a nearby hospital. As the months tick by, his girlfriend ''is totally supporting me. But she's getting a little edgy,'' Mr. Long said. He reports no strains, however, from living with her parents. The couple try to have dinner every night with the Twiddys, and they gather with Ms. Twiddy's brother, sister and their families on Sundays.

Pamela Twiddy, 47, who is presiding over this arrangement, wants to support the couple, who plan to marry, in every way she can. ''When my kids were younger, I never would have guessed that I would have allowed this,'' she said. ''But you have to put some things aside for the betterment of the future.''

To folks like Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a research associate professor at the University of Maryland who interviewed more than 300 young adults aged 20 to 29 for a book, children's post-college claims on their parents' pocketbooks and households is all part of a new life period he calls ''emerging adulthood.'' Rather than focus on settling down to a career and marriage, these graduates prize exploration and self-expression. ''They're looking for a job that's not just a job, but more like a calling,'' Mr. Arnett said. ''Marriage, home and children are seen by most of them not as achievements to be pursued but as perils to be avoided.''

But I have to wonder: is funding your children in their adult lives really the best way to show your love? Or is it connected to this new generation of buddy-parents, whose aim is to be friends with their children, rather than authority figures? College career centers report that parents' participation in their children's job hunts is more common now than ever. Parents are also subsidizing (or buying outright) apartments for their children far more frequently than in the past. ''I think there is an unwillingness to deny their children the pleasures of life,'' said Ann F. Caron, a developmental psychologist in Greenwich, Conn.

To Ronnie Stern, a marriage and family therapist in Maplewood, N.J., this extended dependency is part of a trend in which parents seem to demand less of their children at any given age. ''All the milestones for kids today are stretched, from toilet training, which has moved to 4- and 5-year-olds, to getting a job,'' she said. ''The fact that children don't launch clearly at the end of the process is not a surprise.''

Mrs. Stern, 61, remembers growing up when it would have been embarrassing to ask somethi