Tom Kovach
America just isn't working
Could all of this have been by accident?
By Tom Kovach
© republicbroadcasting.org
"In a world of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
I've noticed this trend for years, but it has now hit "crisis proportions." (That means "when everyone else finally starts to notice.") America just isn't working.
I remember an interview in the early 1980s with Victor Kiam, in which he warned the audience of 60 Minutes that, if the government didn't stop regulating entrepeneurs out of business, "One day, we'll all be sitting around selling each other insurance." He was fairly accurate.
Left-wing politics has taken over almost everything in America. As a result, the middle class is no longer merely eroding. It is almost vaporizing before our eyes.
In order to find a good job in America today, one must either: a) have the ubiquitous "three to five years of experience," b) have a four-year college degree (for many jobs, the degree can be in any field), c) have a certificate from an expensive trade school, or d) join a union (and, thus, pay dues to support the election of more of the people that are destroying America). Or, you could simply "know someone" — in which case, you don't really need any qualifications.
Gone are the days when one could simply go door-to-door in the morning, and have a job before lunchtime. (I've actually done that when I was younger.) Gone are the days when a company was willing to say — right up front — that they would train someone for the job. For that matter, gone are the days when you go to a company and pick up a job application. The few companies that still actually use a paper application form tend to treat them as though they were secret information by requiring you to fill out the form on the premises, instead of taking it home to do at the comfort of your kitchen table. (Why take it home? Well... why do companies ask such stupid questions as where you went to elementary school?? And, why do companies ask the same questions on different parts of the form? When you can answer those questions, then you'll understand why smart people don't want to sit and write the same stupid information on forms all day long. That's what resumes are for.)
Instead, many companies now only accept online applications. And, a lot of those companies don't have their own in-house recruiting. They "outsource" it to companies that recruit for everyone. (So, if you own a business, and you pay less of a finder's fee than your competitor, then expect the recruiting company to send the best-qualified employees to the other guy.) The volume of job applications is so high (because so many people are out of work) that recruiters don't actually read job applications anymore. They have the computer read it for them. The recruiter tells the computer to look for certain specific words and phrases. If you didn't write your qualifications using those exact words (even though you might have written words that mean the same thing), then the computer will ignore your application. Thus, after paying finder's fees to recruiting companies, employers don't actually get the job candidate with the best qualifications. Instead, they get the candidate that was easiest for the recruiter.
If one wants to become an endless college student, then the government's "509" program will give you a paycheck while you further ... and further, and further ... your education. When you finally finish college, you can get a job working for someone that used to be an endless college student, until they got a government grant to start a business that only hires fellow former endless college students ... with degrees in any subject. (If it doesn't matter what the degree is in, then why is a degree so important? Ah, now you're hunting on the right trail.)
Gone are the days when a "good person" could get a "good job" that would pay a "good income" that would lead to "job satisfaction" and the ability to "enjoy your retirement." Nowadays, companies are so micro-managed by computers — which track our every move, and tell some supervisor when an employee spent too much time in the restroom — that there is little room for human factors. (The employee probably suffers from stress-induced irritable bowel syndrome — which is nearing epidemic proportions — because of being micromanaged at work. Thus, perhaps computer-based micromanagement actually caused the employee restroom problem that it was intended to prevent.)
Does anyone think that all of this is by accident?
In the early 1970s, a group of "educrats" in a small city in Upstate New York invented a program that was designed to funnel high-school students into career programs. The program was called Outcome Based Education. A key goal of OBE was to "develop life-long learners." In its purest sense, that would mean inspiring people to have a zeal for learning just for the intellectual pleasure of the pursuit of knowledge. In practicality, however, it meant endless government funding for endless government "retraining" programs, which would be needed because of endless upheavals in the economy.
If this is beginning to seem like a scenario right out of The Report From Iron Mountain, you are correct. Left-wingers try to claim that the book was a hoax. But, if it was a hoax, then how is it that so many of its predictions have already come true? One of the few predictions that has not yet come true — socialized healthcare — was only stopped because of vocal citizens that opposed Hillary Clinton's attempts to create a secret healthcare governing board while she was first lady in the early 1990s, while her husband was president. Interestingly, many of the citizens that led the opposition had read The Report From Iron Mountain. Regardless of what she might say on the campaign trail, if Hillary Clinton gets elected, you can expect Soviet-style healthcare to be an early priority of her administration.
The people that developed OBE (more about that later) tied the "production" end of the program to a thing called the SCANS Report. That is the Secretary's Commission on the Acquisition of Necessary Skills. You might be asking, "Which secretary?" Answer: the US Secretary of Labor. Notice that the goal of this "education" program does not come from the Secretary of Education. The SCANS Report is a five-year projection of what jobs will be needed in America. Yep, you're right. That's just like the old Soviet Union.
If you're thinking that perhaps America "is becoming a Communist country," then you're a little late. Outcome Based Education was developed more than 30 years ago, and it has affected far more than education or job creation. Look around. In the past 30 years, our country has begun firearm confiscation programs, cradle-to-grave welfare has become a "right" for some people, the government (all levels included) funds the jobs of more people than the private sector, the status of the military has slowly eroded (more about that later), and many people will probably vote for an openly anti-American candidate for president (there are several from which to choose) precisely because that candidate promises a government that will provide even more "benefits." Hello! America already is a Communist country!
The security of our borders is a joke, despite the fact that 86 percent of the population — regardless of political affiliation — wants the borders sealed now. Hard-working Americans are being displaced from their jobs by lower-paid illegal aliens. This is a much bigger drain on our economy than most people realize. Now, here's the sad and shocking part. Labor unions, which purport to protect the jobs of their members, actually work hand-in-hand with the Communist Party of the USA to support the open-borders programs! How can I say such a thing? Well, I was previously a union steward on two different jobs. In 2006, I found out that my own union was a key Communist collaborator! I then did some research, and discovered that other unions — most notably, the United Auto Workers — had also collaborated with the CPUSA to organize the pro-illegal May Day rallies that blocked the streets of major cities across America that year. Sadly, many American citizens went downtown and stood on sidewalks and waved flags to show support for the marchers that want to take over our country. Why are our borders wide open in the first place? Because the past two presidents (one from each of the Big Two political parties) have wanted it that way. The plans for a North American Union have been in the works for a long time. (I saw the charts as far back as 1994. Unfortunately, at that time, I dismissed the idea as "kooky." I have long since repented.) It's no surprise to me that the Security and Prosperity Partnership was signed in Waco, Texas. (Does foreknowledge of the SPP explain why the FBI burned down the Mount Carmel complex, and then buried the rubble? Isn't a law-enforcement agency supposed to preserve evidence until a court releases it?)
If you're not angry, then you haven't been paying attention.
Well-meaning Americans have often supported — under false pretenses — the very programs that are destroying America. That leads us back to the creation of Outcome Based Education. Here are a few more facts about OBE and its early days. The program was developed by a handful of teachers at Johnson City (NY) High School. Their address is 666 Reynolds Road. I attended that school from 1972 — when I left Texas, due to the deaths of my parents — until graduation in 1975. Those teachers did not reveal OBE to the public until several years later. Yes, that means I was an unwitting OBE guinea pig. Parents in that school district had no idea that their children were being used in that way. Some children were used in more direct ways. For the first ten years or so, students in the graphic arts classes were assigned to print the OBE materials that were sold to other school districts. That's right. The teachers that developed OBE used taxpayer-funded school resources to print materials for the OBE consulting company that they founded. They also got paid time off from the district, while they went around the country as paid consultants to implement OBE in other school districts.
In Communism, that's no problem, because the end justifies the means — if you're a member of the "in" crowd.
One of the key methods of developing "life-long learners" is to foster an attitude that everything you learned before might be wrong. That leads to questioning authority. (Remember, that was a key tenet of 1960s Hippie philosophy. What type of degree did many Hippies get from college? Yep, education. Are you beginning to get the picture?) Now, if a teenager (with natural rebellion) is taught that what they grew up with is wrong, and if the school provides the "answer," then that student perceives that what the schools teach is right. If the schools are indoctrinating an underlying Communist philosophy (from the Hippie teachers), and if the student believes that schools are right, then the student graduates with the "desired outcome": an unwitting bent to support Communist ideas as the "right" choice!
Thus, as the poor sap Joe College grows up, he tends to vote for Democrats, not realizing that the Communist Party tells its members to vote for Democrats! (Joe College might not realize it, but you can bet that the OBE developers realized it.) Does that mean that it's safe to vote for Republicans? Hardly! In addition to the open-borders proof from President Bush, consider this. Several years ago, I worked as a legal assistant for a program called TennCare — the state's version of Medicare. Owners of small businesses tend to lean in the Republican direction. While I worked in the legal department at TennCare, I took many phone calls for appeals by small business owners. They would tell me that the reason they had no insurance was because "my employer cut my benefits." A few minutes later, while filling out the paperwork, I would ask them who their employer was. They would answer, "I'm self-employed." I got to the point that I quit trying to reason with those people, and just "did my job" by filing the appeal paperwork. (And, under the TennCare rules, the appeals are endless.) Thus, the so-called "conservative" business owner ends up on the same government dole as the so-called "welfare people." As one of my political mentors once told me, "You can't vote conservative with one hand, while reaching for a government handout through the curtain of the voting booth with the other hand."
But, that sort of duplicitous thinking — especially by conservatives — is exactly what the outcome deciders want. When moral people feel guilty for trying to feed their families, then they become more "pliable." They fear government, and especially fear the turning off of the government benefit faucet. They tend to eventually support the very people that they know (or, at least, knew — before they put their brains into neutral) are destroying America. They tend to think, "Hooray for me. I got mine. Forget about the next guy." That is the difference between a politician and a statesman. A politician works for the next election; a statesman works for the next generation.
As an OBE guinea pig, I was both their best student and their worst nightmare. You see, I began to question them. When I saw the path that they were paving, I began to speak out. Despite being called a "kook" and an "outsider" — even by some fellow conservatives — I have been speaking out ever since. It has cost me a lot, including many jobs and my first marriage.
And that brings us back where we started. Have you read the want-ads lately? Unless you want your children to spend their careers cleaning bedpans for HillaryCare, there isn't a lot out there. And, the jobs seem to be dwindling. You can be a customer-service representative — taking orders for an American company that no longer makes its own products, but merely sells things made by their factory in China. You can be a laundry folder, or a hotel cleaner, working alongside scores of illegal aliens that don't speak your language. You can be a staffing agency recruiter — using computers to filter out job applicants, and helping to outsource everyone's job. (Careful, your job could be next. If this seems reminiscent of the 1950 novel Player Piano, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., you're right.) You can be a computer person, helping to maintain the computers that keep a watchful eye on your fellow employees. You can get a job at a parking garage, helping other people find parking to attend "quality of life" sporting events — supported by your taxes, which are paid by that second job at the parking garage. You can get a job selling fast food, which is eaten by people on the go between their two jobs, which they need to pay their high taxes, which are used to support Communist programs that keep their taxes high. Or, you can sit around selling each other insurance.
Something needs to change, because America just isn't working anymore!
© Tom Kovach
© republicbroadcasting.org
"In a world of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
-
— George Orwell, from his classic book, 1984
I've noticed this trend for years, but it has now hit "crisis proportions." (That means "when everyone else finally starts to notice.") America just isn't working.
I remember an interview in the early 1980s with Victor Kiam, in which he warned the audience of 60 Minutes that, if the government didn't stop regulating entrepeneurs out of business, "One day, we'll all be sitting around selling each other insurance." He was fairly accurate.
Left-wing politics has taken over almost everything in America. As a result, the middle class is no longer merely eroding. It is almost vaporizing before our eyes.
In order to find a good job in America today, one must either: a) have the ubiquitous "three to five years of experience," b) have a four-year college degree (for many jobs, the degree can be in any field), c) have a certificate from an expensive trade school, or d) join a union (and, thus, pay dues to support the election of more of the people that are destroying America). Or, you could simply "know someone" — in which case, you don't really need any qualifications.
Gone are the days when one could simply go door-to-door in the morning, and have a job before lunchtime. (I've actually done that when I was younger.) Gone are the days when a company was willing to say — right up front — that they would train someone for the job. For that matter, gone are the days when you go to a company and pick up a job application. The few companies that still actually use a paper application form tend to treat them as though they were secret information by requiring you to fill out the form on the premises, instead of taking it home to do at the comfort of your kitchen table. (Why take it home? Well... why do companies ask such stupid questions as where you went to elementary school?? And, why do companies ask the same questions on different parts of the form? When you can answer those questions, then you'll understand why smart people don't want to sit and write the same stupid information on forms all day long. That's what resumes are for.)
Instead, many companies now only accept online applications. And, a lot of those companies don't have their own in-house recruiting. They "outsource" it to companies that recruit for everyone. (So, if you own a business, and you pay less of a finder's fee than your competitor, then expect the recruiting company to send the best-qualified employees to the other guy.) The volume of job applications is so high (because so many people are out of work) that recruiters don't actually read job applications anymore. They have the computer read it for them. The recruiter tells the computer to look for certain specific words and phrases. If you didn't write your qualifications using those exact words (even though you might have written words that mean the same thing), then the computer will ignore your application. Thus, after paying finder's fees to recruiting companies, employers don't actually get the job candidate with the best qualifications. Instead, they get the candidate that was easiest for the recruiter.
If one wants to become an endless college student, then the government's "509" program will give you a paycheck while you further ... and further, and further ... your education. When you finally finish college, you can get a job working for someone that used to be an endless college student, until they got a government grant to start a business that only hires fellow former endless college students ... with degrees in any subject. (If it doesn't matter what the degree is in, then why is a degree so important? Ah, now you're hunting on the right trail.)
Gone are the days when a "good person" could get a "good job" that would pay a "good income" that would lead to "job satisfaction" and the ability to "enjoy your retirement." Nowadays, companies are so micro-managed by computers — which track our every move, and tell some supervisor when an employee spent too much time in the restroom — that there is little room for human factors. (The employee probably suffers from stress-induced irritable bowel syndrome — which is nearing epidemic proportions — because of being micromanaged at work. Thus, perhaps computer-based micromanagement actually caused the employee restroom problem that it was intended to prevent.)
Does anyone think that all of this is by accident?
In the early 1970s, a group of "educrats" in a small city in Upstate New York invented a program that was designed to funnel high-school students into career programs. The program was called Outcome Based Education. A key goal of OBE was to "develop life-long learners." In its purest sense, that would mean inspiring people to have a zeal for learning just for the intellectual pleasure of the pursuit of knowledge. In practicality, however, it meant endless government funding for endless government "retraining" programs, which would be needed because of endless upheavals in the economy.
If this is beginning to seem like a scenario right out of The Report From Iron Mountain, you are correct. Left-wingers try to claim that the book was a hoax. But, if it was a hoax, then how is it that so many of its predictions have already come true? One of the few predictions that has not yet come true — socialized healthcare — was only stopped because of vocal citizens that opposed Hillary Clinton's attempts to create a secret healthcare governing board while she was first lady in the early 1990s, while her husband was president. Interestingly, many of the citizens that led the opposition had read The Report From Iron Mountain. Regardless of what she might say on the campaign trail, if Hillary Clinton gets elected, you can expect Soviet-style healthcare to be an early priority of her administration.
The people that developed OBE (more about that later) tied the "production" end of the program to a thing called the SCANS Report. That is the Secretary's Commission on the Acquisition of Necessary Skills. You might be asking, "Which secretary?" Answer: the US Secretary of Labor. Notice that the goal of this "education" program does not come from the Secretary of Education. The SCANS Report is a five-year projection of what jobs will be needed in America. Yep, you're right. That's just like the old Soviet Union.
If you're thinking that perhaps America "is becoming a Communist country," then you're a little late. Outcome Based Education was developed more than 30 years ago, and it has affected far more than education or job creation. Look around. In the past 30 years, our country has begun firearm confiscation programs, cradle-to-grave welfare has become a "right" for some people, the government (all levels included) funds the jobs of more people than the private sector, the status of the military has slowly eroded (more about that later), and many people will probably vote for an openly anti-American candidate for president (there are several from which to choose) precisely because that candidate promises a government that will provide even more "benefits." Hello! America already is a Communist country!
The security of our borders is a joke, despite the fact that 86 percent of the population — regardless of political affiliation — wants the borders sealed now. Hard-working Americans are being displaced from their jobs by lower-paid illegal aliens. This is a much bigger drain on our economy than most people realize. Now, here's the sad and shocking part. Labor unions, which purport to protect the jobs of their members, actually work hand-in-hand with the Communist Party of the USA to support the open-borders programs! How can I say such a thing? Well, I was previously a union steward on two different jobs. In 2006, I found out that my own union was a key Communist collaborator! I then did some research, and discovered that other unions — most notably, the United Auto Workers — had also collaborated with the CPUSA to organize the pro-illegal May Day rallies that blocked the streets of major cities across America that year. Sadly, many American citizens went downtown and stood on sidewalks and waved flags to show support for the marchers that want to take over our country. Why are our borders wide open in the first place? Because the past two presidents (one from each of the Big Two political parties) have wanted it that way. The plans for a North American Union have been in the works for a long time. (I saw the charts as far back as 1994. Unfortunately, at that time, I dismissed the idea as "kooky." I have long since repented.) It's no surprise to me that the Security and Prosperity Partnership was signed in Waco, Texas. (Does foreknowledge of the SPP explain why the FBI burned down the Mount Carmel complex, and then buried the rubble? Isn't a law-enforcement agency supposed to preserve evidence until a court releases it?)
If you're not angry, then you haven't been paying attention.
Well-meaning Americans have often supported — under false pretenses — the very programs that are destroying America. That leads us back to the creation of Outcome Based Education. Here are a few more facts about OBE and its early days. The program was developed by a handful of teachers at Johnson City (NY) High School. Their address is 666 Reynolds Road. I attended that school from 1972 — when I left Texas, due to the deaths of my parents — until graduation in 1975. Those teachers did not reveal OBE to the public until several years later. Yes, that means I was an unwitting OBE guinea pig. Parents in that school district had no idea that their children were being used in that way. Some children were used in more direct ways. For the first ten years or so, students in the graphic arts classes were assigned to print the OBE materials that were sold to other school districts. That's right. The teachers that developed OBE used taxpayer-funded school resources to print materials for the OBE consulting company that they founded. They also got paid time off from the district, while they went around the country as paid consultants to implement OBE in other school districts.
In Communism, that's no problem, because the end justifies the means — if you're a member of the "in" crowd.
One of the key methods of developing "life-long learners" is to foster an attitude that everything you learned before might be wrong. That leads to questioning authority. (Remember, that was a key tenet of 1960s Hippie philosophy. What type of degree did many Hippies get from college? Yep, education. Are you beginning to get the picture?) Now, if a teenager (with natural rebellion) is taught that what they grew up with is wrong, and if the school provides the "answer," then that student perceives that what the schools teach is right. If the schools are indoctrinating an underlying Communist philosophy (from the Hippie teachers), and if the student believes that schools are right, then the student graduates with the "desired outcome": an unwitting bent to support Communist ideas as the "right" choice!
Thus, as the poor sap Joe College grows up, he tends to vote for Democrats, not realizing that the Communist Party tells its members to vote for Democrats! (Joe College might not realize it, but you can bet that the OBE developers realized it.) Does that mean that it's safe to vote for Republicans? Hardly! In addition to the open-borders proof from President Bush, consider this. Several years ago, I worked as a legal assistant for a program called TennCare — the state's version of Medicare. Owners of small businesses tend to lean in the Republican direction. While I worked in the legal department at TennCare, I took many phone calls for appeals by small business owners. They would tell me that the reason they had no insurance was because "my employer cut my benefits." A few minutes later, while filling out the paperwork, I would ask them who their employer was. They would answer, "I'm self-employed." I got to the point that I quit trying to reason with those people, and just "did my job" by filing the appeal paperwork. (And, under the TennCare rules, the appeals are endless.) Thus, the so-called "conservative" business owner ends up on the same government dole as the so-called "welfare people." As one of my political mentors once told me, "You can't vote conservative with one hand, while reaching for a government handout through the curtain of the voting booth with the other hand."
But, that sort of duplicitous thinking — especially by conservatives — is exactly what the outcome deciders want. When moral people feel guilty for trying to feed their families, then they become more "pliable." They fear government, and especially fear the turning off of the government benefit faucet. They tend to eventually support the very people that they know (or, at least, knew — before they put their brains into neutral) are destroying America. They tend to think, "Hooray for me. I got mine. Forget about the next guy." That is the difference between a politician and a statesman. A politician works for the next election; a statesman works for the next generation.
As an OBE guinea pig, I was both their best student and their worst nightmare. You see, I began to question them. When I saw the path that they were paving, I began to speak out. Despite being called a "kook" and an "outsider" — even by some fellow conservatives — I have been speaking out ever since. It has cost me a lot, including many jobs and my first marriage.
And that brings us back where we started. Have you read the want-ads lately? Unless you want your children to spend their careers cleaning bedpans for HillaryCare, there isn't a lot out there. And, the jobs seem to be dwindling. You can be a customer-service representative — taking orders for an American company that no longer makes its own products, but merely sells things made by their factory in China. You can be a laundry folder, or a hotel cleaner, working alongside scores of illegal aliens that don't speak your language. You can be a staffing agency recruiter — using computers to filter out job applicants, and helping to outsource everyone's job. (Careful, your job could be next. If this seems reminiscent of the 1950 novel Player Piano, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., you're right.) You can be a computer person, helping to maintain the computers that keep a watchful eye on your fellow employees. You can get a job at a parking garage, helping other people find parking to attend "quality of life" sporting events — supported by your taxes, which are paid by that second job at the parking garage. You can get a job selling fast food, which is eaten by people on the go between their two jobs, which they need to pay their high taxes, which are used to support Communist programs that keep their taxes high. Or, you can sit around selling each other insurance.
Something needs to change, because America just isn't working anymore!
© Tom Kovach
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
