Read the third part of the article
CHAPTER 3: CONTROLLING THE NARRATIVE
The Rockefeller Family Bought the Educational System
The Rockefellers funded the National Education Association throughout the 20th century and even purchased myriad state university systems outright.
According to Thrive Movement, “In the early 20th century both the Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations were donating large sums of money to education and the social sciences. They supported, in particular, the National Education Association. By way of grants, they spent millions of dollars – money which was used to radically bend the traditionalist education system toward a new system that favored standardized testing over critical thinking, toward ‘scientific management’ in schools. This was part of a calculated plan to make the schooling system benefit corporate America, at the expense of the American school child. Powerful foundations with private interests, such as the Ford Foundation, continue to support, and thereby influence the policy of the NEA to this day.”
Additionally, an unprecedented U.S. Congressional investigation into tax-exempt foundations identified the Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations engagement in an agenda for vast population control.
Norman Dodd, Research Director for the Congressional Committee, found this statement in the archives of the Carnegie endowment: “The only way to maintain control of the population was to obtain control of education in the U.S. They realized this was a prodigious task… [so] the portion of education which could be considered as domestically oriented [was] taken over by the Rockefeller Foundation and that portion which was oriented to International matters [was] taken over by the Carnegie Endowment.”
Carnegie Pushes for the Standardization of both Medicine and Education
As we explored in Chapter One of this article, the Flexner Report of 1910 was produced under the auspice of the Carnegie Foundation, the same entity that would later collaborate with David Coleman and Jason Zimba on the inception of Common Core. This new national standard would be the torch the Obama Administration would rally the Left with, to further George W. Bush’s 2001 program, No Child Left Behind. This is more evidence that Western politics has generally had a false left/right paradigm as both parties align behind the same agenda.
Ironically, the left has historically been more in favor of the arts, which are right brain disciplines. The right has been more in favor of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields, which are left brain disciplines.
Tim Murphy of MotherJones.com writes: “In 2008, Coleman and Zimba unveiled an ambitious plan for overhauling education in an essay for the Carnegie Corporation. ‘The standards must be made significantly fewer in number, significantly clearer in their meaning and relevance for college and work, and significantly higher in terms of the expectations for mastery of what is covered’, they wrote. In reading, for example, they said schools should deemphasize literature and rely more on ‘informational texts’ – speeches, magazine articles, government reports”.
Bill Gates Takes the Reins
Perhaps the modern version of John Rockefeller, Bill Gates hides his true agenda behind a smile and a massive public relations firm. This relation was noticed by one of the biographers of John Rockefeller.
According to Big Oil: The Old Dynasty – an Oil Giant Would Lack a Rockefeller published December 3, 1998, “Ron Chernow, author of Titan, a biography of the elder Rockefeller, compares the Standard Oil founder to William H. Gates, chairman of Microsoft, which is currently the target of an antitrust lawsuit. Both created dominant companies from scratch, drove rivals out of business through aggressive pricing, and innovated relentlessly to maintain their franchises. In both cases, the Government attacked the methods of the individual businessmen as a core part of the threat posed by the companies, Mr. Chernow said.”
According to a Seattle Times article, “At $40.2 billion, the Gates foundation is more than triple the size of the No. 2 Ford Foundation, according to a tally by the Foundation Center, which tracks philanthropy”.
But what agenda is Gates hiding? And why does Gates send his children to a private school that does not adhere to Common Core standards while simultaneously advocating it for everyone else’s children?
Consider the fact that the Gates Foundation is the biggest financial contributor to Common Core. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also helps to fund vaccination development, radical contraceptive technologies, and of course – what portfolio would be complete without massive grants for geo-engineering projects?
The Guardian discloses: “Professors David Keith, of Harvard University, and Ken Caldeira of Stanford are the world’s two leading advocates of major research into geoengineering the upper atmosphere to provide Earth with a reflective shield. They have so far received over $4.6m from Gates to run the Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research (Ficer). Nearly half Ficer’s money, which comes directly from Gates’s personal funds, has so far been used for their own research, but the rest is disbursed by them to fund the work of other advocates of large-scale interventions.
According to statements of financial interests, Keith receives an undisclosed sum from Bill Gates each year, and is the president and majority owner of the geoengineering company Carbon Engineering, in which both Gates and Edwards have major stakes – believed to be together worth over $10m.”
Cascade Investment, LLC is Gates’ personal investment firm, answerable only to him. It has invested in companies in the biotech (GMO) industry such as Monsanto and Seattle Genetics, prescription pain pharmaceuticals such as Pain Therapeutics Inc., and satellite and tracking companies such as Liberty Satellite and Technology Inc.
Gates, who had already poured hundreds of millions of dollars into public education, bought in, and his foundation began spreading grants around to think tanks that could get the ball rolling politically, as well as to the governors’ and state school officials’ groups. He has channeled more than $200 million toward Common Core’s implementation, with the money flowing to dozens of universities, state departments of education, policy institutes, and trade groups – recipients ranged from the progressive Center for American Progress to the conservative US Chamber of Commerce, which was awarded $1.38 million in just one year to whip up support for the standards.
Bill Gates and the Educational Coup
The standardization and centralization of control in the American educational system is eloquently summarized in the following excerpt from DianeRavitch.net: “In a remarkable job of reporting, Lyndsey Layton of the Washington Post describes the creation of the Common Core standards. Two men – Gene Wilhoit and David Coleman – went to see Bill Gates in 2008 to ask him to underwrite national standards. He agreed, and within two years, the standards were written and adopted by almost every state in the nation.
This is the closest thing to an educational coup in the history of the United States. Our education system is made up of about 14,000 local school districts; most education policy is set at the state level. But Bill Gates was able to underwrite a swift revolution. It happened so quickly that there was very little debate or discussion. Almost every consequential education group was funded by the Gates Foundation to study or promote the Common Core standards. Whereas most businesses would conduct pilot testing of a major new product, there was no pilot testing of the Common Core. These national standards were written with minimal public awareness or participation, and at least one state – Kentucky – adopted them before the final draft was finished.”
The Future of Education
Finally, students and teachers are beginning to resist this.
The future of education, if it does not change direction, is heading for an Orwellian statist school system akin to that depicted in Pink Floyd’s The Wall. The very name Common Core implies the standardization and centralization of power. Every book, every lesson, every shred of the curriculum will be prepackaged and dictated by a clandestine group of lawmakers operating behind the national purview. It will be increasingly focused on producing dependent, malleable minds instead of independent critical thinkers. Homeschooling, Waldorf Schools, Freedom Project Academy, and certain private schools are some of the only options left now if hope is to be had for our youth to grow into critical-thinkers.
Mainstream Media Consolidation
In 1983, the United States was home to fifty different independent news media companies. By 2004, this number had reduced to six companies. They are News Corporation, National Amusements, Disney, Time Warner, Comcast, and Sony. These five companies own nearly all of the newspapers, magazines, books, radio and TV stations, and movie studios of the country. These companies are among the 325 largest corporations in the world.
In many cases, these giant companies are vertically integrated, controlling everything from initial production to final distribution. That means these companies often control the entire creative process of a film or television show from beginning to ending – making it an ideal environment for creating propaganda. The U.S. media landscape is dominated by massive corporations that, through a history of mergers and acquisitions, have concentrated their control over what we see, hear and read.
Mainstream Media Companies Own the Pharmaceutical Companies
Alarmingly, the same news media companies most Americans trust to report unbiased information especially when it comes to healthcare own controlling interests in the pharmaceutical companies that often run ads on their channels and outlets.
A recent FAIR study of nine major media corporations and their major outlets, Disney (ABC), General Electric (NBC), CBS, Time Warner (CNN, Time), News Corporation (Fox), New York Times Co., Washington Post Co. (Newsweek), Tribune Co. (Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times) and Gannett (USA Today) found connections to six different insurance companies. Five out of the nine media corporations studied shared a director with an insurance company; two insurance companies – Chubb and Berkshire Hathaway – were represented by more than one media corporation director.
The study also found crossover between these media corporations and several large pharmaceutical companies, such as Eli Lilly, Merck and Novartis, whose profits would also likely be negatively impacted by a single-payer system. Out of the nine media corporations studied, six had directors who also represented the interests of at least one pharmaceutical company. In fact, save for CBS, every media corporation had board connections to either an insurance or pharmaceutical company.
The website goes on to list the media companies and the pharmaceutical companies they are connected to. Disney and ABC are connected to Procter & Gamble. General Electric and NBC are connected to Chubb, Novartis, Procter & Gamble, and Merck. Time Warner is connected to AIG, Health Cap, and Paratek Pharmaceuticals. News Corp and Fox are connected to GlaxoSmithKline, Genentech, and Hybritech. The New York Times Co. is connected to First Health Group and Eli Lilly. Tribune Co. is connected to Abbott Labs, and Middlebrook Pharmaceuticals. And finally, USA Today and Gannett are connected to Chubb.
Direct to Consumer Pharmaceutical Advertisements
Drug companies collectively run the most ads on TV than any other industry. Pharmaceutical companies are the main sponsors of most major news outlets. By controlling the dissemination of news, drug companies are able to curate their own public criticisms unlike any other. Broadcasters are told what they can and cannot say about their stations’ sponsors.
Why are drug companies advertising to the consumer anyway, and not solely to doctors? Direct to consumer pharmaceutical advertising (DTCPA) was illegal in America until the early 90s. Now, it is the norm. Right now, it is only legal in America and New Zealand, although drug companies are lobbying for Canada and Europe to create more lax laws.
According to a 2011 article published in Pharmacy and Therapeutics, “DTCPA can be defined as an effort (usually via popular media) made by a pharmaceutical company to promote its prescription products directly to patients. The U.S. and New Zealand are the only countries that allow DTCPA that includes product claims. Most other countries don’t allow DTCPA at all; however, Canada does allow ads that mention either the product or the indication, but not both. The pharmaceutical industry and lobby groups have tried unsuccessfully to overturn bans against DTCPA in Canada and other countries or regions, such as in the European Union (EU). Notably, in 2008, 22 of the 27 EU member states voted against proposed legislation that would have allowed even limited ‘information to patients’ to be provided.”
In 2000, it was reported that drug companies spent $2.5 billion on direct to consumer advertising. According to USA Today, that number exceeded $6 billion in 2016. In 1997, the average American watched about 9 drug commercials per day. By 2006, 64 different drugs were advertised to the public per day.
The FDA does not have to review these drug ads before they hit the airwaves. In other words, drug ads do not have to be checked for veracity before airing live in front of millions of consumers. Additionally, the FDA does not require all known side effects to be listed on the drug product’s label.
Epilogue
In this series of articles we followed the money. To get a complete picture, read other articles we have posted on our website which expose both the murder and the medicine that have been routinely suppressed by this pernicious industry.
“It is no matter of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society”, said Jiddu Krishnamurti. This may be interpreted in two ways. Firstly, to adopt the neuroses of a schizoid culture so as to find a sense of belonging is not healthy. Moreover, to view a society rampant with physical sickness as normal or immutable is erroneous. Perhaps man is suffering more from a mental malady than a physical one.
While speaking to an audience in Berkeley, California, Aldous Huxley admitted that his dystopic novel Brave New World was more predictive than fictional.
“And it seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing… a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods.”
“Nepenthe” is a word referring to a potion used in antiquity to assuage physical pain or the pain of sorrow. Some speculate that it was a salve, others say an opiate, still others say it was an edible herb. However, it was not a curative potion, it was merely analgesic. Ergo, the problem persisted. Etymologically, the word has also been used to imply “blissful” ignorance. A nepenthe is a painkiller that allows the patient to operate as if nothing is wrong. In Matrix terminology, a nepenthe represents the “blue pill”.
In a time when antidepressants and pharmaceuticals are dispensed like candy, the question must be raised: “What has caused this universal pain that afflicts the collective?” Moreover, how long can man persist in “blissful” ignorance, suppressing symptoms and neglecting the root cause of his mental malady? Why does he choose a nepenthe instead of a cure?
As man endures the apathetic culture he finds himself in, anticipating truth and instead finding fallacy, looking for meaning and coming up empty-handed, he represses his curiosity, his optimism, and his hope. He uses television to allay his worried mind; he uses vacariism to escape his own anxiety, he uses food and other substances to anesthetize the grief he feels from his psychic suicide. Whatever the nepenthe of choice is, man will do whatever it takes to lessen the pain, sorrow, apathy, guilt, anxiety, cynicism, sadness, and disease he feels every day that he continues to live an inauthentic life.
yogaesoteric
July 10, 2018