Written on 14 January 2016.

   Two groups of scientists and writers are interested in showing demographic doom for Europe and other European settled countries: the Muslim haters and the Islamists.

   Both are happy to show that some time soon Islam will replace Christianity as the leading religion in Europe; the continent will hence become part of the Islamic world and could be called Eurabia.

   "Eurabia is a political neologism. The concept was coined by Bat Ye'or in the early 2000s. Bat Ye'Or (pen name of Gisele Littman) claims a conspiracy of globalist elements, allegedly led by France and Arab powers, to Islamise and Arabise Europe, thereby weakening its existing culture and undermining an alleged previous alignment with the U.S. and Israel". (wikipedia)

   An example of this kind of material is the video “Muslim Demographics” produced by an Islamist video production which calls itself  “Syariah Khilafah“, Malay for “Sharia Caliphate”. The video is very popular and has allegedly been viewed more than ten million times.^*)

   The impressive statistics with which it bombards the audience appear related to a few assumptions:

1. 1. 1. Muslims always show a higher fertility than Christians living in the same country or region

      2. Because of their high fertility Muslims suffer from population pressure and poverty, and are forced to migrate to non-Muslim countries

      3. Their Sharia law facilitates polygyny which permits men to have many children

      4. Christian fertility is continuously declining because Christian women increasingly enter the work force instead of staying at home and rearing children, as most Muslim women do.

      5. Muslims are pious and once they attain the population majority, they will force Christians to adopt their life style.

   Before looking at individual country statistics it is useful to discuss the above assumptions:

1.  Having said this, let us look at the facts.

2.    The video claims that 90 percent of Europe's population growth since 1990 was due to Islamic immigration.  The 2015 (January-October) figures show that roughly 972,000 asylum seekers in the European Union arrived by sea. With the exception of some Christian Eritreans and Syrians, all were Muslims. Since the population of the EU28 grew by 1.1 million (natural growth + net migration) between 2014 and 2015, it is correct to say that in 2015 about 90 percent of Europe's population growth consisted of Muslims.

      Since 1995, most of Europe's population growth consisted of net migration. By 2010, the EU's Muslim population was estimated at 18 million. Net immigration in 2010 was 750,000. In 2013, of the total of 870,000 people who received citizenship in the EU, only about 250,000 hailed from Muslim countries.

      Although it is difficult to get reliable figures for the religious breakdown of  EU immigration, the emerging picture is as follows:

      2015 was an exceptional year in which Muslims indeed accounted for 90 percent of EU population growth. In earlier years the share was much lower. Although the statement made in the video appears exaggerated it cannot be excluded that in future the influx of Muslims could be very high if  immigration continues at 2015 levels .

   Let us look at country data

   France

      The video says that a typical French family has 1.8 children but that French Muslim families have 8.1 children.  France will become an Islamic Republic within 39 years, according to the video.

      But in France only 7.5 percent of a growing population (2010) were Muslims – mostly from North Africa whose fertility was estimated at 2.2 (not the grossly outdated 8.1) children or less per family (2011). Given the observation that the fertility of Muslim minority populations worldwide is currently decreasing faster than that of majority groups, there is little prospect that France will become an Islamic Republic during the course of this century unless huge waves of migrants play havoc with traditional demographics.

   Germany

      According to the video, Germany “will be a Muslim state by the year 2050." Currently, the number of Muslims – including the 2015 arrivals – is roughly 4.8 million of a total of 82 million, or 6 percent. PEW Research put the Total Fertility Rate of German Muslims for 2005-2010 at 1.8 children, higher than the 1.3 TFR of the non-Muslim population but below stability level which requires 2.1 children. Without immigration, the number of Muslims in Germany would shrink, although their share of the total population would continue to rise. Since 2014, however, the overall German TFR started rising, although with small increments. It appears that the declining trend of the German population has ended.  Still. a projection expects Germany's population to shrink to 74 million (medium variant) in 2050, a loss of 8 million since 2015.

      For Muslims to attain the majority, their minority would have to rise from the current estimated 4.8 million to 38 million. Since the existing Muslim minority is shrinking rather than growing, all depends on immigration and the TFR of  immigrants once they arrive in Germany.

      Judging by the events of 2015, it does not appear likely that over the next 35 years some 40 million more Muslims would be living  in Germany – assuming that the below-reproduction TFR of the local Muslims would balance the initially higher TFR of the immigrants.

      In conclusion: it is not likely that Muslims could attain the majority status in Germany by 2050 but it cannot be excluded because the enormous population pressure in Islamic countries resulting from runaway past growth and conflicts will send large numbers of mostly young migrants to Europe, year after year.

   Significance

      Although not totally wrong in its conclusions, the video is clearly biased and operates with outdated and partly false figures. It constitutes another attempt to bolster the myth of the inevitable victory of Islam over the western world. This myth cannot easily be debunked. It has a life of its own, independent of demographic facts.

      The video is clearly aimed at the Muslim population. It shall reinforce the belief that the victory of Islam is imminent and unavoidable. People who are pious and believe in the myth can more easily be motivated to support terrorism and warfare against western countries. Anecdotal evidence shows that many Muslims believe in religious victory, all the more since the well financed Wahhabis and Salafis are omnipresent in the Internet and have multiplied their mosques and medresses to the extent that are eclipsing traditional teachings. Many young Muslims may not even be aware that other rules and fatwas than the Wahhabi ones exist. The video discussed here is part of the radicalist brainwashing. It also serves the secondary purpose of scaring non-Muslim Europeans and strengthening anti-Muslim feelings which isolate Muslim minorities and makes them susceptible to radical ideas.

      Interestingly, other videos from the same source purport to show a united Umma as if the Sunna/Shia split did not exist, perhaps because their production predates the current state of affairs. 

   Heinrich von Loesch
4. *) A slightly different version of this video on Youtube is signed friendofmuslim.

Written on 08 January 2016.

   Allmählich kommt die Wahrheit über das Geschehen der Silvesternacht am Bahnhof von Köln ans Licht. Wie Polizisten Journalisten berichteten, waren die meisten Täter frisch eingereiste Syrer, "Nur bei einer kleinen Minderheit handelte es sich um Nordafrikaner, beim Großteil der Kontrollierten um Syrer."  Das habe sich aus den Dokumenten der rund 100 kontrollierten Personen ergeben.

   Diebstahl sei nur ein sekundäres Phänomen gewesen: "Vorrangig ging es den meist arabischen Tätern um die Sexualstraftaten oder, um es aus ihrem Blickwinkel zu sagen, um ihr sexuelles Amüsement. Eine Gruppe von Männern umkreist ein weibliches Opfer, schließt es ein und vergreift sich an der Frau."

   Die Aussagen werden von einem internen Bericht der Polizei untermauert:

  "Am Vorplatz und der Domtreppe befanden sich einige tausend meist männliche Personen mit Migrationshintergrund, die Feuerwerkskörper jeglicher Art und Flaschen wahllos in die Menschenmenge feuerten bzw. warfen. Bei den durchgeführten Personalienfeststellungen konnte sich der überwiegende Teil der Personen lediglich mit dem Registrierungsbeleg als Asylsuchender des Bundesamts für Migration und Flüchtlinge ausweisen. Ausweispapiere lagen in der Regel nicht vor.”

   Der Bericht listet folgende Verhaltensmuter auf:

• Zerreißen von Aufenthaltstiteln mit einem Grinsen im Gesicht und der Aussage: "Ihr könnt mir nix, hole mir Morgen einen Neuen."
• "Ich bin Syrer, ihr müsst mich freundlich behandeln! Frau Merkel hat mich eingeladen."
•  Wurden Hilferufe von Geschädigten wahrgenommen, wurde ein Einschreiten der Kräfte durch herumstehende (Mitglieder?), z.B. durch Verdichten des Personenringes/ Massenbildung daran gehindert, an die Betreffenden (Geschädigte/ Zeugen/ Täter) zu gelangen.
• Geschädigte/ Zeugen wurden vor Ort, bei Nennung des Täters, bedroht oder im Nachgang verfolgt.
• Maßnahmen der Kräfte begegneten einer Respektlosigkeit, wie ich sie in 29 Dienstjahren noch nicht erlebt habe." 

   “Spiessrutenlauf” der Frauen nannten Polizisten das Geschehen”: “Verfolgt vom Mob” lautet der Kommentar von Sonja Zekri in der Süddeutschen Zeitung vom 7. 1. 16

   Was in Köln geschah ist für Deutschland neu, im Nahen Osten ist es normal, sagt Zekri: “Über 99 Prozent (der Frauen) haben sexuelle übergriffe erlebt, auf Volksfesten zu islamischen Feiertagen, vor Kinos und besonders auf dem Tahrir-Platz (in Kairo), wo ”...ein wogender, johlender Mob... seine Opfer nach einer Ewigkeit halb tot wieder freigibt. Dem Mob entkommt niemand, nicht einmal Verschleierte. Von Marokko bis Bagdad wird die entsetzliche Gewalt gegen Frauen von grössten rhetorischen Anstrengungen um Ehre und Tugend flankiert”.

   Klare Worte der langjährigen Nahost-Korrespondentin, einer Star-Journalistin der SZ. Sie hofft auf “die Überwindung einer jahrhundertelangen frauenverachtenden Erziehung.”

   Das traurige Ergebnis der Kölner Silvesternacht, die von ähnlichen Geschehnissen in anderen Städten begleitet war, ist – abgesehen vom Schock der Opfer – der Umstand, dass die Xenophoben vom rechten Rand nicht nur in Deutschland nun triumphierend ihre Hassparolen bestätigt sehen.

   Die Weltpresse hat die Kölner Frauenjagd-Szenen sehr zur Kenntnis genommen und wartet gespannt, wie die mögliche Friedenspreis-Kandidatin Angela Merkel darauf reagieren wird.

   Doch was kann sie machen, ausser ein paar drohende Worte zu sprechen?

   Der rechte Rand fordert natürlich Taten, Gesetze, und nicht nur er allein. Aber die Wahrheit lautet: es ist (fast) nichts zu machen.

   Deutschland muss begreifen, dass in der Silvesternacht eine Epoche zu Ende gegangen ist, in der das Land ein Shangri-La der Sicherheit des öffentlichen Raums war.

   Diese Sicherheit war dem Umstand zu danken, dass die Massen des demografischen Überdrucks im Süden und Südosten vordem immobil waren. Erst die Kombination von Kriegen, Krisen und Smartphones hat die Massen nun in Bewegung gesetzt. Die Vorhut ist schon da und hat in Köln und anderen Orten ihr Lebensgefühl demonstriert. Mehr von ihnen kommen jeden Tag, und ein Ende ist nicht in Sicht.

   Ein Rechtsstaat mit einer ausgedünnten Polizei hat solchen flash mobs wenig entgegen zu setzen. Die Migranten stammen samt und sonders aus knallharten Diktaturen; für sie sind deutsche Polizei und Rechtsprechung eher Spottobjekte.

   Es wird Zeit, dass sich die Deutschen in der neuen Lage einrichten. Sie werden von jetzt ab mit steigenden Zahlen von Zuwanderern aus Maghreb und Mashrek, aus Ägypten, Somalia, Afghanistan und vielen anderen Ländern zusammen leben müssen.

   Bis diese Zuwanderer und die alte deutsche Gesellschaft sich einigermassen verstehen und vertragen gelernt haben, wird eine Generation vergehen. Daran ändern Papierchen nichts, auf denen die Zuwanderer versichern, sie hätten das Grundgesetz gelesen, verstanden und bejaht.

   Tatsache ist, dass die meisten “deutschen Grundwerte” für die Neuankämmlinge unbegreiflich, ja absurd erscheinen. Allein die Tatsache, dass Deutschland Ausländer in so grosser Zahl ins Land lässt, kann für sie rational nicht begründet werden und lädt zu Verschwörungstheorien ein. Einerseits.

   Andererseits bedeutet ihnen Kenntnis der Genfer Flüchtlingskonvention, dass sie ein Recht haben. Ein Recht auf Aufnahme, das einen Anspruch gegenüber Deutschland begründet. Die berühmte Frage eines Syrers: “Wo ist meine Wohnung , wo ist mein Auto?” gründet darauf.

   Merkel sprach den Syrern die traditionelle Einladung aus: ”Ahlan wa sahlan” – Mein Haus ist Dein Haus. Das nehmen viele wörtlich. Der Umstand, dass die Deutschen ihnen Unterkunft, Nahrung und Taschengeld geben, bestärkt sie darin. Schon an den Balkangrenzen erlebten die Syrer, dass sie bevorzugt durchgelassen werden. Das unterstreicht die Sonderrolle, auf der ihre Anspruchsmentalität gründet.

   Die jungen Männer, die in Köln und an anderen Orten den berüchtigten Ruf “Frau, komm!” sinngemäss ausstiessen, der aus der Epoche der Sowjetbesatzung schmerzlich bekannt ist, hielten sich vermutlich für berechtigt, als Mann weibliche Dienste einzufordern oder zu erzwingen.

   Ihr Taschengeld erlaubte ihnen, sich für Silvester mit Alkohol und Marijuana einzudecken. Wahrscheinlich war Silvester das erste grosse Fest für sie, an dem sie die Sau rauslassen, die gelungene Reise, die Flucht vor dem Kriegsdienst, den Fassbomben und dem Grauen des Daesh und der anderen “Befreier” feiern konnten, mit wehrlosen Frauen.

   Jetzt sieht Deutschland mit Bangen dem kommenden Karneval, dem Fasching und der Fasnacht entgegen. Ein Drittel der Deutschen will nun Massenveranstaltungen meiden – wie lange der Vorsatz vorhält, ist fraglich. Man wird weniger junge Frauen allein oder in Gruppen sehen. Gut ist die Begleitung eines Mannes, besser noch ein grosser Hund, vor dem alle Europa nicht kennenden Moslems Angst und Abscheu empfinden. 

Heinrich von Loesch

Update: -- Unbeantwortete Fragen

   In der italienischen Huffpost vom 9. 1. wundert sich Titti Di Salvo, dass so viele Fragen, die das Kölner Ereignis aufgeworfen hat, nicht beantwortet sind:

A distanza di ben 9 giorni non è stata ancora ricostruita con certezza l'effettiva portata di quello che hanno vissuto sulla propria pelle le donne di Colonia. E' di un vero e proprio attacco terroristico che stiamo parlando? E' possibile che la polizia abbia sminuito a tal punto l'evento da ammettere degli errori solamente quattro giorni dopo? Se si tratta di singoli criminali, come è possibile che lo stesso evento si sia verificato in diverse città contemporaneamente?

   In der Süddeutschen Zeitung vom  9/10. Januar stellt Heribert Prantl eine Liste von sieben brennenden Fragen zu dem Polizeieinsatz der Silvesternacht auf. Man sollte sie auf eine Plakatwand vor dem Polizeipräsidium in Köln-Kalk so lange projizieren, bis sie beantwortet sind. Wie heisst eigentlich der Ministerpräsident von Nordrhein-Westfalen? Ach ja, Hannelore Kraft (SPD). Wie wär's mit einem Rücktritt?

Update II   Flüchtlingshelferin packt aus:

"Ich halte es dort nicht mehr aus"

Eine Sozialarbeiterin bekommt einen Job in einer Hamburger Erstaufnahmestelle. Sie freut sich darauf - und muss schnell alle ihre Vorstellungen in Frage stellen. Protokoll einer Desillusionierung: "Wohnung, schickes Auto und am besten ein richtig guter Job..."

-- ed

Written on 11 January 2016.

   Cologne and no end. German media are mobilizing their Middle East correspondents and all kinds of experts to explain to their audience what happened on New Year's Eve in Cologne, Hamburg, Stuttgart, and why.

   For the first time the “Arabs” occupy center stage. More than any terrorist attack has the Cologne flash mob succeeded in shaking up Germany's complacent way of life.

   The Germans are furious. Their politicians, the bureaucracy and the police appear helpless, hapless. “Who got us into this mess?” Merkel.

   With more millions suspected to be on the way to Europe, the feeling of doom is pervasive. Nobody believes that new laws and more policing will save the old way of life.

   Who are these Arabs who insulted German women and poked fun at the police?

Who are these Arabs?

   After half a century of co-existence with Turkish and Kurdish immigrants and their offspring the Germans thought they knew it all – the forced marriages, the honor killings, the under-age brides, the hubble-bubble cafes and the halal butchers.

    And now the Arabs! So new, so different, so threatening! And so many!

   In addition to the Syrians and Iraqis there are now thousands of Moroccans, Algerians and Tunisians on the move toward Germany. They cannot claim refugee status; their arrival in increasing numbers undermines the altruistic groundswell of the German society (at least in western Germany) which impressively welcomed the Syrians and the Eritreans in 2015.

   The Moroccans, mostly young unemployed men from poor quarters were electrified by the news of the successful trek of hundreds of thousands through the Balkans to Germany. The traditional Moroccan migration route to Italy and from there to France has been blocked by the Italian police which now prevents them from stepping off the plane and evicts them on the return flight. The same treatment is offered to Algerians; Italy concluded agreements with both countries which rule that they will take back all illegal migrants.

   Since Turkey is still open to Moroccans and Algerians, the flights to Turkey are sold out and rates have been raised.

   What irks the Germans as regards young North Africans is their reputation for pickpocketing. In fact, in poor quarters of Casablanca, attending the pickpocket school is for young men often the only way of learning a trade. In Cologne, numerous Maghrebinians, especially Moroccans, gave an impressive show of their skills.  Since they cannot hope to be offered asylum, they try to make as much money as possible during their stay in Germany, North Rhine Westphalia police says. Theft, burglary and drug pushing are their main activities. North Africans and Lebanese clans display utter disrespect for the police and are living in ghettoes which are virtual no-go areas where single police patrols are impossible, Süddeutsche Zeitung reported (Gesetz der Strasse, 16/17-1-16)

Unlike the Greeks

   In the 1960s, Germany was invaded by thousands of young Greek males fleeing poverty. Many of them quickly established a trade, set up a restaurant or shipped second hand cars and machinery to Greece. Others found employment as unskilled workers. Many Greeks married German women in order to get a permit of residence, allowing them to fulfil their dream of buying a car and returning to Greece with a German number plate, where cars were luxury items because of heavy customs duties.

   The Greeks somehow managed their German families and, on the whole, integrated well. When they took their German wife to Greece she was well received and treated with courtesy.

   The young Arabs now arriving in Germany by the hundreds of thousands have quite different ideas. They are attracted by Germany not only for making money to send home but also to enjoy themselves. Enjoying themselves -- as the events in Cologne, Hamburg and Stuttgart showed -- means girls, women, and cheap alcohol. In Arabic such events are called  تحرش جماعي , (taharrush gamea),  a form of collective sexual harassment and rape popular among young Arabs.

   Undoubtedly Germany's reputation for having plenty of girls in miniskirts circulating in public places is an exciting offer to young, poor Arabs who cannot hope of  finding a wife in their country because they cannot afford the bride price and/or the costly wedding.

   In the current discussion of the refugee crisis only two types of migrants have found attention: the true refugee and the economic migrant. The existence of a third type of sexual migrant has been ignored. He comes from predominantly Muslim countries, Arab and non-Arab, with their rigid morale.

   The current trend in Muslim countries of women adopting the veil – which was once limited to peasantry and the low classes – increases the contrast of appearance between Arab and European women, and hence the fascination for young Arab men.

   What about the good old convenience marriage with a German woman in order to secure the residence permit and all related advantages?

   Nope. In matters of marriage, the young Arab will consult his family back home where probably the daughter of his father's brother is waiting for him. She is often  not allowed to marry another man unless her  اِبْنُ عَمَّةٍ  (ibn 'amm), her cousin, refuses her.

   If the young Arab is independent enough to ignore the family and marry a foreigner, there are two unpleasant possible consequences: one is that he will one day return to his country. abandon his European family and divorce his wife in the convenient Sharia way. Or he will take his European wife to his hometown where she will have to convert to Islam. She will find herself locked up in the house and forced to put on the veil. 

Ihsan al-Tawil

Update

Der Spiegel magazine reported that German Länder governments encountered difficulties in deporting North Africans. The governments of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia were very reluctant to accept returnees. By end-July 2015, of some 5,500 North Africans due to be deported, German authorities only succeeded in repatriating 53 of them during the first half of 2015.  

 Update II  Not only Arab men ...

In Munich's large Bayern Barracks refugee shelter, a group of 15 Nigerian women surrounded a Protestant Church representative and demanded to be given an apartment. The women harrassed the man, some allegedly slapped him in the face; one of them strangled him with his shawl. The man did not react because the women were carrying babies. Some threatened to let the babies drop to the floor unless he provided them with apartments. When police arrived, the situation calmed down. (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 14 January 2016)

Update III  Women themselves responsible ...

Warning women against "adding fuel to the fire". the Imam of a Salafist Cologne mosque',  Imam Sami Abu-Yusuf,  has said the victims of the New Year’s Eve attacks in that city were themselves responsible for their sex assault by being half naked and wearing perfume.

Breitbart, 19 January 2016

Written on 06 January 2016.

 Donald Trump as the Canary in the Cave of Ignorance

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
                                                                                                           -- Isaac Asimov

   The political right in America has been flirting with dangerous ideas for a while now, particularly on issues involving immigrants and minorities. Lately, with the advent of Donald Trump as the leading presidential candidate in the Republican Party, the rhetoric has gotten particularly insane. To my mind, the most dangerous of those ideas is the idea that democracy means that everybody is entitled to one’s own ignorance, even worse, that, to paraphrase Asimov, one’s ignorance is as good as one’s knowledge.

    If you have any doubt about the above quote by Asimov pick up the following recent books on this issue: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1964) by Richard Hofstadter; The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby; The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein; Idiot America by Charles Pierce; American Idyll: Academic Anti-Elitism as Cultural Critique by Catherine Liu. They may convince you that the problem is real indeed. If they do not convince you, you may have grounds to suspect that you have been affected by the general dumbing-down and may indeed be in chain in Plato’s cave of ignorance and mere appearances and don’t even know it.

   The apotheosis of this strange anti-intellectualism which denies even the empirical evidence of science, which Asimov believes has always been integral part of American culture, arrived lately with the bizarre phenomenon of Donald Trump, who in many ways has become an icon for the millions of people who follow him as a savior of sorts and consider anti-intellectualism a sign of liberty and free speech. The question arises: How did we descend this low? The short answer is this: by the dumbing-down of the general population. Trump is nothing less than the proverbial canary in the coal mine: a sign that the oxygen of liberty and democracy is diminishing precipitously, and not only in America, but globally, especially in the West which has always been proud of democracy’s invention together with the concept of freedom. Alas, rabid nationalism and even fascism are returning with a vengeance. We seem to be back to square one in the early 30s, brown or black shirts strutting about parading their patriotism. One begins to wonder if World War II was an exercise in futility after all.

    But let us explore in some detail what is the essence of this dumbing-down. Let us begin by examining the ecological catastrophe we are currently experiencing well into the 21st century. Time is running out despite the recent Paris Conference on Climate Chance which may mitigate somehow the impending catastrophe but we are hardly out of the woods yet; that will only happen if urgent action follows the empty rhetoric. As it is, the totality of destructive damage that transnational corporations have perpetrated against all forms of planetary life has destroyed the eco-systems of thousands upon thousands of animal and plant species. Of the five times that life on earth has become massively extinct in the past, we humans are rapidly causing the sixth great cycle of mass extinction and the first and fastest due to manmade effects in the form of rising global air and water temperatures and over-polluted water, air and soil. The dead zones across the planet are spreading faster rates of extinction amongst plant and animal life than at any prior time in the earth's known history.

    I checked those facts with my elder daughter who is finishing up a master in ecology and the environmental science, and she assures me that such is indeed the case. The facts are there for anybody to digest if one believes in truth. Destruction of our living habitat and eco-system carries perhaps the most damning, ultimate dumbing-down effect that the oligarchs of our brave capitalistic world of the ilk of Donald Trump and company, have caused. But then they no doubt have laid out their own contingency plan utilizing a hidden technology that can save them when the lights go out on mother earth for the rest of us lowly expendables.

    Indeed, the powers that-be in the United States  have been systematically dumbing-down Americans as a society for a very long time - all by calculated design. Originally the term dumbing-down was used as a slang expression in 1933 by film screenwriters to mean "revising [the script] so as to appeal to those of lower education or intelligence." It actually began as a concept with the oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller who declared that we don’t need a nation of thinkers but a nation of workers, that is to say, we need automatons who enrich the elite class and don’t do much thinking for themselves, or anybody else.

   The most obvious example of how Americans have been dumbed-down is through this nation's failed public education system. At one time not that long ago America reigned supreme as a leading model for the rest of the world providing the best quality free public K-12 education system on the planet. But over the last many decades while much of the rest of the world has been passing us by, it seems an insidious federal agenda has been implemented to condition and brainwash a population of mindless, robotic citizenry that simply does what it's told, and of course the brainwashing commences early.

    As a pawn to the military industrial complex, the US government has chosen permanent war over its own people. One can count a minimum of six major wars in the 20th century, not to mention the minor covert ones all over the globe. This misguided decision to opt for power rather than knowledge and wisdom, has decimated the middle class and created a college educated indentured class struggling in heavy debt to find any means to stay afloat. With an outsourced, now vanished manufacturing base, upward mobility and the American dream have become tragic casualties of modern life.

    After centuries of carefully orchestrated design, oligarchs of the banking cabal have finally gotten what they've been plotting and scheming, globally enforced austerity and impoverishment reducing life in America and around the world to near Third World status, and absolute control. The oligarchs are counting on a dumbed-down population too busy addicted to their video games or watching sports or Kim Kardashian's latest wardrobe malfunction to even notice that a longtime oligarch eugenics plan is already well underway. The fact that a Donald Trump is in the lead for his party’s nomination as the next president of the US speaks volumes by itself.

    But this dismal outcome has long been in the making on many fronts. Over numerous decades a grand experiment engaging in social engineering with America's youth has been steadily working to homogenize a lowest common denominator product of sub par mediocrity, creating generations of young Americans who can neither read nor write, nor think for themselves in any critical manner. According to a study last year by the US Department of Education, 19% of US high school graduates cannot read, 21% of adults read below 5^thgrade level and that these alarming rates have not changed in the last ten years. Has anybody noticed that the debates or the Republican party are now conducted with language at the fifth grade level, complete with bullying and clownish body language and vituperations? They are not for enlightenment but for amusement and distraction. They resemble more a circus than a deliberative dialogue.

    The international test results from the 2012 PISA indicate American students are lagging behind virtually all developed nations even more than in the past. China topped all 65 nations while US teenagers again scored at or below average in math, reading and science. That is because the current educational system is no longer about learning the basic A-B-C's but simply cranking out a subclass of work force laborers. Some concerned educators have dubbed the current education system as "limited learning for lifelong labor." That is to say, education has become training for a job and acquisition of practical skills, and consequently it is no longer education educating holistically the whole man.

    But this planned system of a New World Order (NOW) featuring a planned global economy and a planned global education system has been promoted for well over a century now. The Carnegie Foundation outlined its explicit roadmap for absolute oligarch control way back in the 1930's. Department of Education whistleblower Charlotte Iserbyt exposed the conspired downfall of America's educational system in her well documented chronicle The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America. She demonstrates that even national sovereignty gets subordinated to world authority. 

   The heavy focus of public education today is primarily limited to standardized test performance and the proliferation of privatized charter schools complete with private contractors teaching the tests, usurping the authority at all levels from state, to local communities, to individual teacher's lesson plans, to home schooling parents, largely replaced by instructional software programs.

   This lopsided war between fascist run propaganda schools brainwashing a Brave New World youth and the local school boards, teachers and parents battling for their lives to maintain what little choice they still have left with their children is yet another pathetic cautionary tale of what the oligarch agenda is doing to destroy America today. 

    Instead of encouraging the gifted by teaching to their strengths, too often they are responded to punitively by either overly frustrated and/or rigid, authoritarian adults bent on maintaining some semblance of control. The one size fits all cookie cutter system stifles learning, cognitive and intellectual development and creativity, rewarding those who acquiesce and simply do what they are told as good little boys and girls on their way to being good little employees and citizens who are so easily manipulated, controlled and subdued. They become the lifeless, walking dead who merely go through the daily motions on autopilot, too beaten down, numb and/or fearful.

   A substantive quality education should teach the curious developing mind to be critical and discriminating, willing to ask questions, challenging the status quo of preconceived suppositions and accepted dogma. With an educational system that purposely misinforms and indoctrinates young people to respond as Skinnerian rats to a positive reinforcement schedule of operant conditioning, children as future adults are being shaped and programmed to become little robots easily controlled by their oligarch masters.

    Another primary means of dumbing down America is through mass media. If the public is busily preoccupied with the superficial garbage spoon-fed to the masses every single day via television, movies, music, internet, video games that all act just as effective as the most potent drug dulling the senses and the brain, again an enormous control over the population is achieved and maintained. Here again Donald Trump is the perfect icon: politics reduced to entertainment. When asked where he derived his knowledge of the facts from, Trump answered “the TV shows.” With so much entertainment as the modern day opiate to the masses to divert people's attention, these weapons of mass distraction easily render people oblivious to see what is really happening in the world. We are all being numbed and dumbed.

   This too is another form of calculated brainwashing, mind control as well as behavior control that the media as vehicles of propaganda and disinformation constantly utilize. The constant 24/7 sensory bombardment that media puts on humans is one highly effective means of control over both culture and population.

    Currently an incredible near 70% of all Americans are taking at least one prescription drug. Between the multibillion dollar alcohol and tobacco industries and the multibillion dollar Big Pharma industry, these corporate entities wield colossal amounts of power in America, buying off politicians, spending billions on advertising, often times killing people whose addiction overpowers them.

    Rampant drug addiction in US society becomes yet another very effective means of control over millions of humans who struggle daily with their very real demons. The number of deaths related to drug overdose has jumped 540% since 1980. And whatever collateral damage results from those who die as well as those who engage in criminal activity to support their habit, with both a privatized prison industrial complex and privatized medical system, again the only profiteers feeding off the misfortunes of the afflicted are that same power elite.

    The same damage and dumbing down-effects are only added on when considering the detrimental and often lethal effects that chemically processed foods, chemical and hormone injected meat products, genetically altered organisms (GMO's) and pesticide-ridden foods, not to speak of fluoride treated water,  that virtually the entire American population consumes on a daily basis. The masses are poisoning themselves to death with built up toxins in their bodies.

   In conclusion, after this brief excursus into the byways of mass-dumbing-down, perhaps we can agree that what is most disturbing about Donald Trump is not who he is, for one cannot teach an old dog new tricks, but the obvious evidence, that the ones who think like him and follow him devotedly are legions. That spells disaster even for a democratic society with constitutional checks and balances. Will the canary in the cave of ignorance save us? That would be a silver-lining to be greatly hoped for, but there are no guarantees and democracy may indeed perish in the cave of ignorance together with the witless canary. Time will tell. 

Dr. Emanuel Paparella

This article was first published by OVI Magazine