How the Public Schools Keep Your Child a Prisoner of the State

by Karen De Coster

Public education, in its current state, is based on the idea that government is the "parent" best equipped to provide children with the values and wisdom required to grow into intelligent, functional adults. To echo what former first lady Hillary Clinton professed, these public school champions believe "it takes a village" to cultivate a society of competent human beings.

As Hebrew University historian Martin van Crevald points out in his book, The Rise and Decline of the State, nineteenth-century state worshippers who wanted to impose a love of big government ideals upon the youth popularized the archetype for state-directed education. Additionally, there was an overall appetite for discipline of the "unruly" masses that reinforced the campaign to take education out of the hands of individuals. After all, the self-educated masses might resist government decrees, and this kind of disarray would be undesirable in the move toward building a powerful, controlling state apparatus. Prussia's Frederick William I and France's Napoleon discerned this, as did a legion of other despotic rulers throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. In a recent article published on the American Daily Herald "Dumberer and Dumberest," Glenn Horowitz writes:

If you're not familiar with it, the Prussian system was a teaching methodology designed to stamp out good little worker bees assembly-line fashion, trained to be complacent with their station in life and compliant with every demand of the State. An elite of those better educated but still proven unquestioningly loyal to the State were promoted to lead the proletariat, rewarded with elevated status and material success commensurate with their skills and the zeal they demonstrate in supporting the system. It specifically avoided developing creativity and independent thought, reasoning these were skills the worker classes didn't need in their roles as mass produced labor.

Modern education is built upon a foundation set forth by tyrants. What is most disquieting about the public education mindset is that those who believe most strongly in it are convinced that there are no other suitable alternatives to the compulsory schooling provided via the public domain. The egalitarian core belief of these public education proponents is that society is responsible for obtaining, maintaining, and paying for the process of equally developing young minds.

Since the laws of the modern state that control the educational system lean heavily toward equality, federal compulsory schooling is necessarily a bias against the best and brightest of America’s children. Federalized education sustains the philosophy that schools have the obligation to treat all students as pure equals – equal in intelligence, work ethic, performance, and desire.

Such nonsense is refuted by H. George Resch in his article "Equality vs. Equity" on the Separation of School and State website. Mr. Resch contends that compulsory, government-controlled education is trying to achieve ends that are not possible due to the fact that general equality is not only impossible to define, but that biological, environmental, and cultural differences among us are so vast that a compulsory, standardized public education poses difficulties that cannot be overcome, and certainly not by a government-run school system.

It's obvious that public schooling is neither beneficial to most students, nor is it efficient. Education is an acquired good, a good that has to meet the needs of the consumers or else face rejection in the free market. Accordingly, there is a necessity for unique, private educational institutions that cater to the urgencies of the marketplace, or home schools that provide a quality environment for each student's direct needs.

In a blog titled "Farmville USA," writer Skip Oliva presents the idea that public schooling is organized along the same principles as factory farming.

Public schooling is based on the same organizational principles as factory farming. They are both modern procedures designed to replace ancient methods of child-rearing and rural farming, respectively. Both rely on a core principle of confinement. In factory farming, animals are generally kept indoors in confined pens for duration of their lives. If we’re talking about male cattle raised for veal, they are literally confined to a small box and denied any exercise whatsoever. With public schooling, children are confined indoors for the majority of daylight hours and, in lower grades, generally restricted to a single classroom. They are expected to sit quietly at desks – analogous to a factory animal cage – with only limited exercise approved for limited, scheduled intervals. Animals and children alike are deprived of the ability to fulfill their natural desire to exercise and explore their outdoor environments.

The confinement of children on the part of authoritarian figures who demand mandatory attendance illustrates how the federal public school system has become a security garrison with satellite detainment facilities. Moreover, yanking children from their parents and assimilating them into dumbed-down, draconian learning pools based on age and collectivizing their learning experience in a quasi-prison environment hasn't worked, and it will never be ideal for the vast majority of the children. Skip Oliva continues:

There is also the issue of socialization. Many farmed animals, including cows, pigs and rabbits, are naturally sociable and psychologically require healthy contact with other members of their species, particularly with their mothers during adolescence. Factory farming largely ignores those relationships. Young cattle are often denied any maternal contact, in order to preserve the mother’s milk for human consumption. Animals are often caged or together in inadequate indoor facilities which promote the spread of disease, aggressive fighting and even cannibalism. Similarly, when children are confined in large classrooms, they are more exposed to communicable diseases and subject to anti-social behaviors such as bullying.

Of course, proponents of schooling claim socialization is a primary benefit, especially compared with continued instruction from a parent (aka "homeschooling"). Yet as is true with most high-order mammals, human children require an extended period of exclusive access to a parent, ideally the mother, who serves as a model for proper social behavior. Children of the same age are inadequate substitutes. They cannot model behaviors that they themselves have not learned. Nor is a teacher in a position to do so, as one person is incapable of developing the necessary relationship of trust with several dozen children during normal "business" hours.

The reality of public schools in America is that they resemble prisons, holding children captive and subjecting them to monitoring, authoritarian supervision, arbitrary rules, prescribed conformity, coerced abstinence, zero tolerance insanity, irrational fears, invasion of privacy, prison-like security, unlawful searches, mind-controlling drugs, and the police state. John Taylor Gatto, in his essay, "Some Reflections on the Equivalencies Between Forced Schooling and Prison," noted that America’s public schools and its penal system are alike because within each environment an individual’s movements, thoughts, and associations are regarded with great suspicion and are therefore controlled. Gatto explains:

Almost all Americans have had an intense school experience which occupied their entire youth, an experience during which they were drilled thoroughly in the culture and economy of the well-schooled greater society, in which individuals have been rendered helpless to do much of anything except watch television or punch buttons on a keypad.

Before you begin to blame the childish for being that way and join the chorus of those defending the general imprisonment of adults and the schooling by force of children because there isn't any other way to handle the mob, you want to at least consider the possibility that we've been trained in childishness and helplessness for a reason. And that reason is that helpless people are easy to manage. Helpless people can be counted upon to act as their own jailers because they are so inadequate to complex reality they are afraid of new experience. They're like animals whose spirits have been broken. Helpless people take orders well, they don't have minds of their own, they are predictable, they won't surprise corporations or governments with resistance to the newest product craze, the newest genetic patent – or by armed revolution. Helpless people can be counted on to despise independent citizens and hence they act as a fifth column in opposition to social change in the direction of personal sovereignty.

In 2009, a compelling documentary was produced that focuses on the control and containment that is the government’s compulsory school system: The War on Kids . This documentary has not received the attention it deserves, but every parent who has a child that has received a sentence of thirteen (or more) years in the compulsory schooling environment should watch this film.

Note in Part 2 where the filmmaker visually shows how so many of the public schools look exactly like prisons. Some of the footage you will see throughout the film is staggering, and some of the interviews with public school bureaucrats are remarkably creepy. Here is the website for the movie, and this is the general information presented for the film (it is shown in six parts on TagTélé).

In 95 minutes, THE WAR ON KIDS exposes the many ways the public school system has failed children and our future by robbing students of all freedoms due largely to irrational fears. Children are subjected to endure prison-like security, arbitrary punishments, and pharmacological abuse through the forced prescription of dangerous drugs. Even with these measures, schools not only fail to educate students, but the drive to teach has become secondary to the need to control children. Not only do school fall short of their mission to educate, but they erode the country’s democratic foundation and often resemble prisons.

School children are interviewed, as are high school teachers and administrators, and prison security guards, plus renowned educators and authors including:

Henry Giroux: Author of Stealing Innocence Corporate Culture's War on Children

Mike A. Males: Sociologist, author of Scapegoat Generation

John Gatto: New York City and New York State Teacher of the Year

Judith Browne: Associate Director of the Advancement Project

Dan Losen: The Civil Liberties Project, Harvard University

The War on Kids, Part 1: http://www.tagtele.com/videos/voir/47708
The War on Kids, Part 2: http://www.tagtele.com/videos/voir/47730/1/
The War on Kids, Part 3: http://www.tagtele.com/videos/voir/47711/1/
The War on Kids, Part 4: http://www.tagtele.com/videos/voir/47734/1/
The War on Kids, Part 5: http://www.tagtele.com/videos/voir/47846/1/
The War on Kids, Part 6: http://www.tagtele.com/videos/voir/47945/1/

Karen De Coster, CPA [rothbardiancpa@yahoo.com] is an accounting/finance professional in the healthcare industry and a freelance writer, blogger, speaker, and sometimes unpaid troublemaker. She writes about libertarian stuff, economics, financial markets, the medical establishment, the Corporate State, health totalitarianism, and other essentially, anything that encroaches upon the freedom of her fellow human beings. When she has a few moments of spare time she prefers to do functional fitness, kayak the Detroit River, and drink hot toddies. This is her LewRockwell.com archive and her Mises.org archive. Check out her website. Follow her on Twitter @karendecoster.

28 Signs That U.S. Public Schools Are Rapidly Being Turned Into Indoctrination Centers And Prison Camps

It has been said that children are our future, and right now the vast majority of our children are being "educated" in public schools that are rapidly being turned into indoctrination centers and prison camps. Our children desperately need to focus on the basics such as reading, writing and math, but instead a whole host of politicians, "education officials" and teachers are constantly injecting as much propaganda as they possibly can into classroom instruction. Instead of learning how to think, our children are continually being told what to think. Not only that, our children are also being trained how to live as subservient slaves in a Big Brother police state. Today, nearly everything that children do in public schools is watched, monitored, recorded and tracked. Independent thought and free expression are greatly discouraged and are often cracked down upon harshly. If students get "out of line", instead of being sent to see the principal they are often handcuffed, arrested and taken to the police station. In addition, law enforcement authorities are using weapons such as pepper spray and tasers against young students in our public schools more than ever before. Children in U.S. public schools are not learning how to live as strong individuals in the "land of the free and the home of the brave". Rather, they are being trained how to serve a Big Brother police state where control freaks run their entire lives. If we continue to allow all of the liberty and freedom to be systematically drained out of our school children, then there is not going to be much hope for the future of this nation.

The following are 28 signs that U.S public schools are being turned into indoctrination centers and prison camps....

#1 All 50 U.S. states are now constructing federally-mandated databases that will track the behavior and performance of all public school students in America throughout their entire school careers. According to the New York Post, the Obama administration wants to use the information that is gathered for a wide array of purposes....

The administration wants this data to include much more than name, address and test scores. According to the National Data Collection Model, the government should collect information on health-care history, family income and family voting status. In its view, public schools offer a golden opportunity to mine reams of data from a captive audience.

#2 All over America, school children are being immersed in the radical green agenda. In fact, in many areas of the country children are actively trained to watch how their parents behave and to correct them when they are being "environmentally unfriendly". The following is from a recent New York Times article about this phenomenon....

“I have very, very environmentally conscious children — more so than me, I’m embarrassed to say,” said Ms. Ross, a social worker in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. “They’re on my case about getting a hybrid car. They want me to replace all the light bulbs in the house with energy-saving bulbs.”

Ms. Ross’s children are part of what experts say is a growing army of “eco-kids” — steeped in environmentalism at school, in houses of worship, through scouting and even via popular culture — who try to hold their parents accountable at home. Amid their pride in their children’s zeal for all things green, the grown-ups sometimes end up feeling like scofflaws under the watchful eye of the pint-size eco-police, whose demands grow ever greater, and more expensive.

Later on in that same article, a district superintendent is quoted as saying that they try to inject the green agenda wherever they can into the curriculum....

“We’re trying to integrate it into anything where it naturally fits,” said Jackie Taylor, the district’s superintendent. “It might be in a math lesson. How much water are you really using? How can you tell? Teachers look for avenues in almost everything they teach.”

#3 One 13-year-old student down in New Mexico was recently handcuffed and forcibly removed from a classroom just because he burped in class. In all, over 200 students in Bernalillo County "have been handcuffed and arrested in the last three years for non-violent misdemeanors".

#4 All over America, students are being taught that the First Amendment does not apply in public schools. Expressions of free speech in school are often cracked down upon very hard. For example, one group of high school athletes was recently suspended for "Tebowing" in the hallways of their school.

#5 Many public school sex education classes have totally crossed the line. Instead of just "educating" children about sex, many sex ed courses are now "indoctrinating" children about sex. One recent example of this was detailed in the New York Times....

IMAGINE you have a 10- or 11-year-old child, just entering a public middle school. How would you feel if, as part of a class ostensibly about the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, he and his classmates were given “risk cards” that graphically named a variety of solitary and mutual sex acts? Or if, in another lesson, he was encouraged to disregard what you told him about sex, and to rely instead on teachers and health clinic staff members?

That prospect would horrify most parents. But such lessons are part of a middle-school curriculum that Dennis M. Walcott, the New York City schools chancellor, has recommended for his system’s newly mandated sex-education classes. There is a parental “opt out,” but it is very limited, covering classes on contraception and birth control.

#6 Sadly, this "sexual indoctrination" appears to be working. According to one recent study, sexual conduct between teen girls in the United States is now at the highest level ever recorded.

#7 Putting kids in jail has become standard operating procedure in the United States. Today, nearly one-third of all Americans are arrested by police by the time they reach the age of 23. At this point, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the largest total prison population on the entire globe, and yet our society just continues to become more unstable.

#8 In some U.S. schools, RFID chips are now being used to monitor the attendance and movements of children while they are at school. The following is how one article recently described a program that has just been instituted at a preschool in California....

Upon arriving in the morning, according to the Associated Press, each student at the CCC-George Miller preschool will don a jersey with a stitched in RFID chip. As the kids go about the business of learning, sensors in the school will record their movements, collecting attendance for both classes and meals. Officials from the school have claimed they're only recording information they're required to provide while receiving federal funds for their Headstart program.

#9 Increasingly, incidents of misbehavior at many U.S. schools are being treated as very serious crimes. For example, when a little girl kissed a little boy at one Florida elementary school recently, it was considered to be a "possible sex crime" and the police were called out.

#10 Even 5-year-old children are now being handcuffed and arrested by police in public schools. The following is from a recent article that described what happened to one very young student in Stockton, California earlier this year....

Earlier this year, a Stockton student was handcuffed with zip ties on his hands and feet, forced to go to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and was charged with battery on a police officer. That student was 5 years old.

#11 A teenager in suburban Dallas was recently forced to take on a part-time job after being ticketed for using bad language in one high school classroom. The original ticket was for $340, but additional fees have raised the total bill to $637.

#12 It is not just high school kids that are being ticketed by police. In Texas the crackdown extends all the way down to elementary school students. In fact, it has been reported that Texas police gave "1,000 tickets" to elementary school kids over a recent six year period.

#13 Our children are being programmed to accept the fact that they will be watched and monitored constantly. For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is spending large amounts of money to install surveillance cameras in the cafeterias of public schools all across the nation so that government control freaks can closely monitor what our children are eating.

#14 If you can believe it, a "certified TSA official" was recently brought in to oversee student searches at the Santa Fe High School prom.

#15 Last year, a 17 year-old honor student in North Carolina named Ashley Smithwick accidentally took her father's lunch with her to school. It contained a small paring knife which he would use to slice up apples. So what happened to this standout student when the school discovered this? The school suspended her for the rest of the year and the police charged her with a misdemeanor.

#16 According to blogger Alexander Higgins, students in kindergarten and the 1st grade in the state of New Jersey are now required by law to participate "in monthly anti-terrorism drills". The following is an excerpt from a letter that he recently received from the school where his child attends....

Each month a school must conduct one fire drill and one security drill which may be a lockdown, bomb threat, evacuation, active shooter, or shelter-in place drill. All schools are now required by law to implement this procedure.

So who in the world ever decided that it would be a good idea for 1st grade students to endure "lockdown" and "active shooter" drills? To get an idea of what these kinds of drills are like, just check out this video.

#17 In some U.S. schools, armed cops accompanied by police dogs actually conduct surprise raids with their guns drawn. In this video, you can actually see police officers aiming their guns at school children as the students are lined up facing the wall.

#18 The U.S. government is now encouraging children to spy on their parents as part of the "war on terror". If a school official hears that a parent has said the "wrong thing" at home, that parent could potentially get labeled as a "potential terrorist".

#19 The U.S. government has also been increasingly using "polls" and "surveys" as tools to gather information about all of us. In previous articles, I have noted how government authorities seems particularly interested in our children. According to Mike Adams of Natural News, the CDC is starting to call parents all over the U.S. to question them about the vaccination status of their children....

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control, which has been comprehensively exposed as a vaccine propaganda organization promoting the interests of drug companies, is now engaged in a household surveillance program that involves calling U.S. households and intimidating parents into producing child immunization records. As part of what it deems a National Immunization Survey(NIS), the CDC is sending letters to U.S. households, alerting them that they will be called by "NORC at the University of Chicago" and that households should "have your child's immunization records handy when answering our questions."

You can see a copy of the letter that the CDC has been sending out to selected parents right here.

#20 Last year, a high school student in Southern California was suspended for two days because he had private conversations with his classmates during which he discussed Christianity. He was also banned from bringing his Bible to school ever again.

#21 In early 2010, a 12 year old girl in New York was arrested by police and marched out of her school in handcuffs just because she doodled on her desk. "I love my friends Abby and Faith" was what she reportedly wrote on her desk.

#22 Back in 2009, one 8 year old boy in Massachusetts was sent home from school and was forced to undergo a psychological evaluation because he drew a picture of Jesus on the cross.

#23 A little over a year ago, a 6 year old girl in Florida was handcuffed and sent to a mental facility after throwing temper tantrums at her elementary school.

#24 Other students in Florida have actually been arrested for bringing a plastic butter knife to school, for throwing an eraser, and for drawing a picture of a gun.

#25 Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has announced that school officials can search the cell phones and laptops of public school students if there are "reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school."

#26 Increasingly, authorities are using "pre-crime" technology on our children in order to identify potential problem individuals. For example, the Florida State Department of Juvenile Justice has announced that it will begin using analysis software to predict crime by young delinquents and will place "potential offenders" in specific prevention and education programs.

#27 At one public high school in McAllen, Texas earlier this year, students were ordered to stand up and recite the Mexican national anthem and Mexican pledge of allegiance. School authorities have failed to explain how reciting a pledge of allegiance to a foreign nation has any educational value whatsoever.

#28 All over the United States, tasers are increasingly being used to "subdue" high school students. The following are two very shocking examples of this that were cited in a recent Alternet article....

On September 29, Keshana Wilson, 14, was shocked in the groin with a Taser while shoved against a parked car by Allentown, Pennsylvania police officer Jason Ammary, just outside her high school. The incident was captured on surveillance footage. Allentown police argue that the officer’s behavior was justified because “Wilson was cursing and inciting a group of people” as well as resisting arrest. While defending his fellow officer, Allentown Assistant Police Chief Joseph Hanna argued, “officers are trained to use the justified amount of force dictated by the actions of the resister, not their age or gender.”

Zahrod Jackson, a 17-year-old student, “was eligible to receive free lunch” at Middletown High School in Connecticut, according to a June report in the Middletown Press. Last September, Jackson exited the cafeteria line with a slice of pizza, but returned for a beef patty after spotting both pizza and a beef patty on the tray of a student who also receives free lunch. A screaming match ensued between Jackson and a cafeteria worker who accused the teen of stealing. The commotion quickly caught the eyes of SROs Kurt Scrivo, who “threw Jackson onto the cafeteria floor,” and Alex Rodriguez, who Tasered him five times.

So is all of this brutal repression helping our children get a better education?

Of course not.

The truth is that the American population is rapidly being "dumbed-down".

Today, American 15-year-olds do not even rank in the top half of all advanced nations when it comes to math or science literacy.

Not only that, our public schools are also producing kids that are woefully unprepared for college. The United States once had the highest proportion of young adults with post-secondary degrees in the world. Today, the U.S. has fallen to 12th.

Our public education system absolutely stinks and it is getting worse all the time.

I went to public schools all of my life, but I would never want to send my children to public schools now. They are going downhill really, really fast.

Just sending different politicians to Washington D.C. is not going to change the course of this nation. We need a complete political, economic, educational, moral, spiritual and philosophical renewal. Right now America is becoming a little more like North Korea every day. If we continue on this path there will be absolutely no future for our children and our grandchildren.

It is absolutely disgusting that our public schools are being transformed into indoctrination centers and prison camps. This is not what America is supposed to be about.

If we do not choose to stand up and fight for the future of this country, then we are going to get the future that we deserve.

The Pledge of Allegiance to Citigroup, J&J, General Electric, and Ritalin

Until 1942 American school kids used the same Roman salute as the Nazis and Italian socialists/fascists. After the crimes of these regimes became apparent the US government changed up the look of the pledge but the practice of having children pledge their allegiance to the government in government schools led by government teachers continues to this day. The Prussian Model of education that was adopted by the US Government was openly developed by the Prussian government to instill obedience to the state to ensure support for the government taxation schemes and to get the population to easily conscript into the military and obey the orders of commanders.

This video from the sketch comedy troupe Whitest Kids U Know destroys the legitimacy of a system where young, impressionable children are forced by teachers and peer pressure to grow up swearing allegiance to a government that is openly controlled by corporate special interests that receive hundreds of billions from the government and then spend hundreds of millions supporting the candidacies of the politicians voting them money. The video also openly mocks the pharmaceutical company programs that drug MILLIONS of children every year in the schools.

9-11 - A Conspiracy Theory

1500+ Architects and Engineers Prove 9-11 Was an Inside Job

Because the Central Bankster-owned MainStreamMedia keeps Americans immersed in a sea of propaganda and distraction, most are not aware that thousands of architects, structural engineers, physicists, chemical engineers, demolition experts, and other technical professionals have examined the evidence of 9-11 and concluded that the official story is a lie and that explosives were used to bring down the twin towers and a third skyscraper: WTC 7 on 9-11.

WTC 7 is the "Smoking Gun" of 9-11. A 47 story modern steel-framed skyscraper that collapsed completely and symmetrically into its own footprint at free-fall speed.. Defying the laws of physics and displaying all the hallmarks of a controlled demolition: blast squibs, symmetrical collapse, free-fall acceleration, melted steel, and even unreacted military-grade thermitic material found in the debris. The building was the CIA and NSA's headquarters in New York City... The largest CIA base in the world outside of Langley. It contained New York City's "Emergency Management Center" which was coincidentally built the year before 9-11 with blast-proof windows, its own oxygen supply, uninterrupted power, and military-grade communications... all overlooking the World Trade Center complex.


But the government school system continues to teach kids that 9-11 was the work of 19 arabs who couldn't even fly light aircraft operating out of a cave in Afghanistan.

Charlotte Iserbyt: The Secret History of Western Education & Scientific Destruction of Minds

Charlotte Thompson Iserbyt served as the head of policy at the Department of Education during the first administration of Ronald Reagan. While working there she discovered a long term strategic plan by the tax exempt foundations to transform America from a nation of rugged individualists and problem solvers to a country of servile, brainwashed minions who simply regurgitate whatever they’re told.

Iserbyt breaks down how conditioning/training under a corporate agenda has replaced traditional education, leading to a deliberate dumbing down of Americans. Iserbyt further explains how Reagan signed agreements merging the U.S. and Soviet systems under the United Nations banner, turning over education and many other areas of public policy to global control.

Fluoride - Poison in our Kid's (and Teacher's!) Water

One of the techniques the government uses to keep the tax slaves under control is to put the toxic chemical Fluoride, which lowers IQ, in the water. The substance that is put into the public's water supply to, supposedly, prevent dental caries is fluorosilicic acid in Loudoun/Fairfax and Sodium Fluoride in other jurisdictions both of which are the toxic byproducts of aluminum and fertilizer manufacture. It is undeniable that fluorosilicic acid is poisonous. It states that it is poisonous on its Material Safety Data Sheet that the government requires on all toxic chemicals transported through the US. It states that it is poisonous on the labels on the bags that are received by the water treatment plants. The notoriously pro-government Wikipedia admits it is poisonous, as do Natural News and the Mercola Natural Health Newsletter which are the most widely subscribed health newsletters in the world. It is so toxic that I have been told by a superintendent of a water treatment facility that its fumes alone will actually etch/ruin glass in the rooms where it is stored and used.

The Label from a container of Sodium Fluorsilicate / Fluorosilicic Acid

How Fluoride is Harming Our Kids and Teachers

Lower IQ - Fluoride has been linked to lower IQ in 23 published studies from around the world.

Major Health Issues including: Tyroid Problems including Hypothyroidism, Gastrointestinal Tract Problems, Compromised Immune System, Cancer,

Dental Fluorosis - Ironically, Fluoride ingestion in the early years damages the tooth-forming cells leading to a defect in the tooth enamel and discoloration known as Dental Fluorisis.



Does Fluoride Even Protect Teeth From Cavities?
Not really. Here is information from the Fluoride Action Network:

"According to the current consensus view of the dental research community, fluoride's primary - if not sole - benefit to teeth comes from topical application to the surfaces of teeth (while in the mouth), and not from ingestion.

It is also acknowledged by dental researchers that fluoride has little effect on preventing cavities in the pits and fissures (chewing surfaces) of teeth - where the majority of tooth decay occurs.

Perhaps not surprisingly, therefore, tooth decay rates have declined at similar rates in all western countries in the latter half of the 20th century - irrespective of whether the country fluoridates its water or not. Today, tooth decay rates thoughout continental western Europe are as low as the tooth decay rates in the United States - despite a profound disparity in water fluoridation prevalence in the two regions.

Within countries that do fluoridate their water (such as the United States and Australia), recent large-scale surveys of dental health - utilizing modern scientific methods not employed in the early surveys from the 1930s-1950s - have found little difference in tooth decay, including in "baby bottle tooth decay", between fluoridated and unfluoridated communities."

Do Other Countries Fluoridate the Water?
Very Few as the Chart above Indicates:

- 97% of western Europe has rejected fluoridated water due to the known health risks, however 10% of Britons drink it and the UK government is trying to fast track the fluoridation of the entire country’s water supply.

- In Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg fluoridation of water was rejected because it was classified as compulsive medication against the subject’s will and therefore violated fundamental human rights.

Who Say Fluoride is Good for You?

The Federal Government - The US Public Health Service has been promoting fluoridation for 30 years and it doesn't appear that they are willing to admit their mistake anytime soon. The Federal Government is getting 50% of the public's income for its unconstitutional and flagrantly criminal activities so they have an interest in a dumbed-down and docile public. The scientists and toxicologists of the Enviornmental Protection Agency disagree and, through their union, have testified before Congress on the toxicology of Fluoride (See below).

The American Dental Association - The ADA has a government-granted monopoly on the training and certification of dentists. It also receives financial compensation from the toothpaste companies for the use of its imprimatur on every box of toothpaste so it can hardly be called unbiased. Many ADA dentists disagree and actually market themselves as "Fluoride-Free Dentists" to appeal to the intelligentsia. The ADA's public position on Fluoride has been refuted point-by-point @ http://www.fluoridedebate.com/

The Aluminum and Fertilizer Industries - These multi-billion dollar industries would be forced to pay about $10,000 per tank car to dump their hazardous waste in a Class A landfill vs. making an equivalent amount selling it to public health services to be dumped into the water supply.

Who Disagrees and is Sounding the Alarm?

14 Nobel Laureates in Medicine and Chemistry - List compiled by the Dr. Paul Connett, Professor of Chemistry at St. Lawrence University in his important monograph: 50 Reasons to Oppose Fluoridation (Appendix 4)

1) Adolf Butenandt (Chemistry, 1939)
2) Arvid Carlsson (Medicine, 2000) - Video Interview on Subject
3) Hans von Euler-Chelpin (Chemistry, 1929).
4) Walter Rudolf Hess (Medicine, 1949)
5) Corneille Jean-François Heymans (Medicine, 1938)
6) Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood (Chemistry, 1956)
7) Joshua Lederberg (Medicine, 1958)
8) William P. Murphy (Medicine, 1934)
8) Giulio Natta (1963 Nobel Prize in Chemistry)
10) Sir Robert Robinson (Chemistry, 1947)
11) Nikolai Semenov (Chemistry, 1956)
12) James B. Sumner (Chemistry, 1946)
13) Hugo Theorell (Medicine, 1955)
14) Artturi Virtanen (Chemistry, 1945)

The Scientists and Toxicologists of the Environmental Protection Agency - The EPA's own scientists and toxicologists, through their union, have testified before Congress on the toxicology of Fluoride and requested that it be removed from the water.

Dr. William J. Hirzy, Senior Vice President of the EPA's Union testifying before the Senate on the toxicology of Fluoride and calling for a moratorium

Dr. William Marcus, the Former Chief Toxicologist of the EPA's Water Quality Program - Dr. Marcus was an EPA whistleblower who was fired after publishing scientific reports on the toxicity of fluoride and recommending that it be taken out drinking water. Dr. Marcus' case was taken up by the Nation Whistleblower's Center which protects government employees from retaliation for publishing damaging facts about the government. He fought a two year legal battle where it came out that EPA lied, shredded documents, and falsified documents in their campaign against him. EPA was ordered to reinstate Dr. Marcus and pay back wages and damages for its actions.

Harvard School of Dental Health Researcher Elise Bassin - Dr. Bassin research confirmed a link between fluoridated water and higher incidence of bone cancer in children that had originally been identified in research by the National Toxicology Program in rats. The Washington Post called Bassin's 2001 Doctoral Thesis work that showed this correlation in children "is considered the most rigorous human study to date on a possible connection between fluoridation and osteosarcoma, a rare but lethal form of cancer that affects males nearly twice as often as females". Illustrative of the way that monied interests have and continue to cloud the issue, Dr. Bassin's faculty advisor at Harvard, Dr. Chester Douglass, appears to have suppressed this research within the School of Dental Health. It was discovered that he was on the payroll of fluoridated toothpaste manufacturer Colgate as an editor of the Colgate Oral Health Report. The Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization, stepped in to ask federal officials to open an investigation into Dr. Douglass' conduct in the matter which they did.

Thousands of Health, Environmental & Scientific Professionals - The Fluoride Action Network, the leading organization fighting water fluoridation, has put together a Professionals Statement to End Fluoridation which has been signed by over 3,000+ Health, Environmental and Scientific Professionals. Signers include:
• Arvid Carlsson, Nobel Laureate for Physiology or Medicine, 2000
• Vyvyan Howard, MD, PhD, Immediate Past President, International Society of Doctors for the Environment (ISDE)
• Ingrid Eckerman, MD, MPH, President, Swedish Doctors for the Environment (LFM), Stockholm, Sweden
• Raul Montenegro, PhD, Right Livelihood Award 2004 (known as the Alternative Nobel Prize), President of FUNAM, Professor of Evolutionary Biology, National University of Cordoba, Argentina
• The current President and six past Presidents of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology
• Three scientists from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Headquarters Union in Washington D.C.
* William Marcus, PhD, Former chief toxicologist of the EPA Water Division, Boyds, MD
• Three members of the National Research Council committee who wrote the landmark 2006 report: Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA's Standards (Hardy Limeback, PhD, DDS; Robert L. Isaacson, PhD; Kathleen M. Thiessen, PhD)
• The Board of Directors, American Academy of Environmental Medicine
• Two advisory board members of the UK government sponsored “York Review”
• Andy Harris, MD, former national president, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Salem, OR
• Theo Colborn, PhD, co-author, Our Stolen Future
• Lynn Margulis, PhD, a recipient of the National Medal of Science
• Ken Cook and Richard Wiles, President and Executive Director, Environmental Working Group (EWG)
• Ron Cummins, Director, Organic Consumers Association
• Magda Aelvoet, MD, Former Minister of Public Health, Leuven, BELGIUM
• Doug Everingham, former Federal Health Minister (1972-75), Australia
• Peter Montague, PhD, Director of Environmental Health Foundation
• Ted Schettler, MD, Science Director, Science and Environmental Health Network
• Stephen Lester, Science Director, Center for Health, Environment, and Justice
• Lois Gibbs, Executive Director, Center for Health, Environment, and Justice, Goldman Prize Winner (1990), Falls Church, VA
• Rosalie Bertell, PhD, Regent of the Board, International Physicians for Humanitarian Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland, Retired President, International Institute of Concern for Public Health, Toronto, Canada
• FIVE Goldman Prize winners (2006, 2003, 1997, 1995, 1990)
• Sam Epstein, MD, author, “Politics of Cancer” and Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition
• Pat Costner, retired Senior Scientist, Greenpeace International
• Jay Feldman, Executive Director, Beyond Pesticides
• Sandra Duffy, Board President, Consumers for Dental Choice
• Joseph Mercola, Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, http://www.mercola.com, Chicago, IL
• Michael W. Fox, DSc, PhD, BVM, MRCVS (former vice president of The Humane Society of the US, former vice president of Humane Society International and the author of more than 40 adult and children’s books on animal care, animal behavior and bioethics), http://www.twobitdog.com/DrFox/, Minneapolis, MN
• Leo Cashman, Executive Director of DAMS (Dental Amalgam Mercury Syndrome)
• Chris Bryson, author, The Fluoride Deception
• Environmental leaders from over 30 countries, and
• Legendary folksinger, songwriter and activist, Pete Seeger

Some Honest MainStreamMedia (mostly foreign) - Here is a recent story by an Australian television network.




What Can Parents/Teachers, Ashburn Elementary School & the Loudoun County School System Do About It?

Here are some suggestions:

1. Parents & Teachers - Get a water filter for your home that removes Fluoride and send your kids to school with fluoride-free water in a BPA-free bottle as I do with my kids. Buy Fluoride-free toothpaste (it says right there on the label that it is poisonous)

The most obvious solution is to get a water filter to remove the fluoride, chlorine, and any other contaminants from the drinking water and water used for cooking at the school. The last time that I saw the finances of the Ashburn PTO the organization was sitting on over $50,000+. The comment field is open below if anyone would care to name a more important use for that money than ensuring poison-free water for the students and teachers. I have already donated a small filter to the school which remains unused and I stand ready to donate, as I am sure that many other parents would as well, to any effort to buy the school a large capacity filter.

Actual Sign over an Ashburn Elementary School Water Fountain

2. Research the Issue - Last year I contacted Dr. William Marcus, the former chief toxicologist for the EPA's water quality program. At the time Dr. Marcus was willing to do a conference call with the school administration and the Ashburn Elementary PTO which I suggested to the School's principal Mrs. Walthour be recorded and made available to the parents and teachers on the school's website. Mrs. Walthour refused. Why? I have requested to address the PTO on the issue on 4 separate occasions and have been refused. If there is credible evidence that the water that is being given to the students and teachers at the school is toxic then why would they not want to investigate the subject?

Additionally, the Loudoun County School District employs hundreds of science and chemistry teachers. I know from looking at the logs of this website that employees of the school district are frequent visitors to this site. Surely the school district has the resources to look into this issue and the other information presented on this website. If there is nothing to this then publish a rebuttal. The comment field for this article stands open and waiting below.

Research Resources

The Fluoride Action Network -The leading organization globally covering the topic.

• 50 Reasons to Oppose Fluoridation
  

Book: The Fluoride Deception by Christopher Bryson

Dr. Joseph Mercola, publisher of the world's most subscribed health newsletter, and Fluoride Action Network head Dr. Paul Connett talks about the potential dangers of water fluoridation and what you can do to help remove fluoride from your water supply. Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

In this video, award-winning journalist Christopher Bryson, author of The Fluoride Deception, examines one of the great secret narratives of the industrial era; how a grim workplace poison and the most damaging environmental pollutant of the cold war was added to our drinking water and toothpaste. Part 2, Part 3

About the Author

Howard Lichtman is a parent of two students at Ashburn Elementary School, a member of the PTO, and a technology analyst, consultant and publisher. Mr. Lichtman is a frequent commentator on visual collaboration and his writings on and analysis have been featured by US News and World Report, Telephony Magazine, CXO Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, Reuters, Pro AV Magazine, Killer App Magazine, ABA Banking Journal, Bank Systems and Technology Magazine and CFO Magazine among others.