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.

Firewater - Full Length Documentary Exposing the Poisoning of the Water Supply Through Fluoridation

Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9

Here is a superb documentary on water fluoridation that was put together by activists in Australia. It is an excellent overview of the toxicology of Fluoride, the harm it does the body, and the corporate "tobacco science" that its supporters rely on to promote a program to dispose of millions of tons of toxic waste from the aluminum and phosphate fertilizer industry into the public's drinking water.

I am constantly amazed at how cut and dried this issue is for anyone that spends an hour looking into the subject. The government is dumping poisonous toxic waste that has been linked to lower IQ in 24 studies from around the world into the public's water. It is an absolute, unequivocal FACT. Period.

I have found that most people simply can't get over the cognitive dissonance involved in the realization that the government is poisoning their water (and controlling the MainStreamMedia to ensure that the subject is never covered on their tell-a-vision).

What is even more odd is that anyone that has a scintilla of understanding about world history should know that is exactly the kind of thing that governments do to control their populations. Look at the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, East Germany, China, etc.

Does anyone really believe that a government that is taking 50% of your income for blatantly unconstitutional programs and openly transferring trillions to private banks and CIA front companies like AIG has any interest in a well-educated population capable of critical thinking?

Books Donated to the Ashburn Elementry School Library & The Hand that Rocked Your Intellectual Cradle

I have donated the following titles to the Ashburn Elementary School Library: Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, and Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto.

I have done so because these books represent some of the most scholarly and well referenced works available documenting the hidden curriculum of government education:

• The deliberate dumbing down of the masses so they can't understand how they are getting raped by the organized crime families that are stealing trillions though central banking/seinorage, military-industrial complex fraud, no-win wars in inhospitable places, etc
  
• Destruction of independent thought and critical thinking (Ibid)
  
• The instillation of essentially blind obedience to governmental authority
• The ultimate creation of compliant tax payers and, when needed, military conscripts.
• Social engineering a "Hive Mind" mentality on issues important to the ruling elite

- Most evident in the government schools focus on "Green" and "environmentalism" to prepare the population to accept: carbon taxes, compact cities, and ultimately one-child policies/eugenics.

Most teachers, administrators and school psychologists that I have spoken with about this issue don't have a clue that the system they work in has been set up to accomplish these nefarious goals. They are compartmentalized, naive about the "big picture", and many willfully ignorant. I have a good friend who is a psychologist in the Loudoun County School "System" whose kids I care about deeply. I tried to loan her the books above before I donated them to Ashburn Elementary so she could better understand the system she was subjecting her own kids to. Not only did she refuse to even examine the evidence but she threatened to burn the books!

Most teachers and administrators, like my friend the school psychologist, believe because they are in the system... that they understand the system. After all... If there was a hidden curriculum to dumb down the kids then surely they would know about it! Right?

So teachers, administrators, and psychologists will unquestioning go along with "Red, Yellow, Green", public shaming (the "quiet table" at lunch), collective punishment (color cards at lunch), the surveillance cameras, police in the schools, "Classroom Management", the fluoride in the water fountains, raising your hand to go to the bathroom, raising your hand to get a spoon, the almighty Dolphin Dollar, the United Nations flag in the school, sex education, religion and value-free education, death education, the D.A.R.E Program (I turned in my parents and all I got was this lousy t-shirt), the Pavlovian bells, forced vaccinations, tee vees in the classrooms, schools they won't even send their own kids to, the garbage they are serving the kids in the lunchroom, the pledge of allegiance, communal property/communism, military recruiters in the high schools, whole language, outcome-based education, and all the other egregious, counter-productive and/or dehumanizing practices the government school system is engaged in.

Why? Because that's what "The Experts" in Washington DC and the Teacher's Colleges recommend!

NEVER QUESTIONING WHO FUNDED THE EXPERTS/TEACHERS COLLEGES

OR WHO CREATED THE SYSTEM!!!!

Most government school teachers, administrators, and school psychologists don't have a clue as to how and why the Prussian educational model was imported to the United States. I would wager that the majority couldn't even identify Kindergarten as a Prussian word (A garden to grow children)

Most government school teachers, administrators, and school psychologists don't have a clue as to who set up the General Education Board and the teacher's colleges that became the basis for the system they serve today.

Because the administrators, teachers, and school psychologists don't understand how and why the system they serve was constructed, Aristotle would argue they don't really know much at all!

Aristotle's "four causes" stand at the heart of Western rationality and Western science. In order to know a thing, anything at all, Aristotle says that one must be able to understand four causes.

1. Material cause: “that from which, present in it, a thing comes to be … e.g., the bronze and silver, and their genera, are causes of the statue and the bowl.”
2. Formal cause: “the form, i.e., the pattern … the form is the account of the essence … and the parts of the account.”
3. Efficient cause: “the source of the primary principle of change or stability,” e.g., the man who gives advice, the father (of the child). “The producer is a cause of the product, and the initiator of the change is a cause of what is changed.”
4. Final cause: “something’s end (telos)—i.e., what it is for—is its cause, as health is of walking.”

The most important of these to him was the Efficient Cause. For Aristotle, in order to be said to know/understand some “thing” I.E. Government Schools, or The American Psychological Association, or the American Medical Association, etc. one must be able to know the cause of it.

For knowing about something consists of giving an explanation for why that thing is as it is and in order to give such an explanation, one must know the cause of the thing.

So while most school teachers, administrators, and school psychologists think believe they understand the government school system or the American Psychological Association because, after all, they work in the government school system and are a member of the American Psychological Association the reality is they know nothing at all (zero, (0), zilch, nada, nothing) about how these systems came into being, who funded their development and why.

So their understanding of the very systems they serve is actually quite fragile…

Perhaps they should look into who rocked their intellectual cradle…

Meet Daddy:

For the rest of the story there are a number of new scholarly, well-referenced books in the Ashburn Elementary School Library.

If they haven't already been burned...

Black Friday Demonstrates the Product of Government Schooling

As you watch these scenes of horror from Black Friday realize you are watching the fluoridated, vaccinated, government-schooled masses. As the Central Banksters and their government puppets rape and plunder the country for trillions these are people they don't have to worry about. Ignorant, obese, immoral, dumbed-down tax-slaves that have been poisoned by Fluoride in the water, mercury and aluminum in vaccines, BPA in food plastics and cans, MSG/glutamates in processed foods, and aspartame in everything. They get their reality from the tell-a-vision and glossy magazines and have been taught obedience to the government by government teachers teaching out of government textbooks in government classrooms. As the purchasing power of their dollar evaporates they won't even understand how they have been ripped off... They will riot in the streets begging for help from the same government that dumbed them down and stole their birthright, freedom, and wealth by design.

Psychologists, Death Education, Drugs, and Government Schools

A short video that touches on a number of the programs that are being used to dumb down the population through the government school system. For those that are beginning to understand that their is a hidden curriculum to the government's school system, here are a number of links to verify and research the topics discussed in this short film.


Death Education
Death education at Columbine High - Dr. Samuel L. Blumenfeld

Artist David Dees Simplifies the Government Educational Model

David Dees is a talented artist that tackles the hard issues of the oligarchical control system, the police state, eugenics, vaccinations, fluoride, and the government's mandatory indoctrination centers. Here is his latest work which neatly summarizes the Prussian model of education that was specifically designed from the outset to create obedient citizens that paid their taxes without question, conscripted easily, and would walk into cannon fire (or TSA checkpoints) when ordered.

That model gave the Prussians a dominance on the battlefield of Europe in the 18th century and was then promptly adopted by government's worldwide who were also interested in having dumbed-down, compliant tax-slaves who would pay willingly no matter how their money was being used: Wars based on lies, false flag terrorism, torture, rendition, or openly handed over to private banks and corporations through the TARP / "bailout".

Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Compulsory Government Schooling

Here I Stand
Erica Goldson

There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, "If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, "Ten years . ." 
The student then said, "But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast -- How long then?" Replied the Master, "Well, twenty years." "But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?" asked the student. "Thirty years," replied the Master. "But, I do not understand," said the disappointed student. "At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?" 
Replied the Master, "When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path."

This is the dilemma I've faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.

Some of you may be thinking, “Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn't you learn something? Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.

I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer – not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition – a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And quite frankly, now I'm scared.

John Taylor Gatto, a retired school teacher and activist critical of compulsory schooling, asserts, “We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness – curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids into truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then. But we don't do that.” Between these cinderblock walls, we are all expected to be the same. We are trained to ace every standardized test, and those who deviate and see light through a different lens are worthless to the scheme of public education, and therefore viewed with contempt.

H. L. Mencken wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not

to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States. (Gatto)

To illustrate this idea, doesn't it perturb you to learn about the idea of “critical thinking.” Is there really such a thing as “uncritically thinking?” To think is to process information in order to form an opinion. But if we are not critical when processing this information, are we really thinking? Or are we mindlessly accepting other opinions as truth?

This was happening to me, and if it wasn't for the rare occurrence of an avant-garde tenth grade English teacher, Donna Bryan, who allowed me to open my mind and ask questions before accepting textbook doctrine, I would have been doomed. I am now enlightened, but my mind still feels disabled. I must retrain myself and constantly remember how insane this ostensibly sane place really is.

And now here I am in a world guided by fear, a world suppressing the uniqueness that lies inside each of us, a world where we can either acquiesce to the inhuman nonsense of corporatism and materialism or insist on change. We are not enlivened by an educational system that clandestinely sets us up for jobs that could be automated, for work that need not be done, for enslavement without fervency for meaningful achievement. We have no choices in life when money is our motivational force. Our motivational force ought to be passion, but this is lost from the moment we step into a system that trains us, rather than inspires us.

We are more than robotic bookshelves, conditioned to blurt out facts we were taught in school. We are all very special, every human on this planet is so special, so aren't we all deserving of something better, of using our minds for innovation, rather than memorization, for creativity, rather than futile activity, for rumination rather than stagnation? We are not here to get a degree, to then get a job, so we can consume industry-approved placation after placation. There is more, and more still.

The saddest part is that the majority of students don't have the opportunity to reflect as I did. The majority of students are put through the same brainwashing techniques in order to create a complacent labor force working in the interests of large corporations and secretive government, and worst of all, they are completely unaware of it. I will never be able to turn back these 18 years. I can't run away to another country with an education system meant to enlighten rather than condition. This part of my life is over, and I want to make sure that no other child will have his or her potential suppressed by powers meant to exploit and control. We are human beings. We are thinkers, dreamers, explorers, artists, writers, engineers. We are anything we want to be - but only if we have an educational system that supports us rather than holds us down. A tree can grow, but only if its roots are given a healthy foundation.

For those of you out there that must continue to sit in desks and yield to the authoritarian ideologies of instructors, do not be disheartened. You still have the opportunity to stand up, ask questions, be critical, and create your own perspective. Demand a setting that will provide you with intellectual capabilities that allow you to expand your mind instead of directing it. Demand that you be interested in class. Demand that the excuse, “You have to learn this for the test” is not good enough for you. Education is an excellent tool, if used properly, but focus more on learning rather than getting good grades.

For those of you that work within the system that I am condemning, I do not mean to insult; I intend to motivate. You have the power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply. Our potential is at stake.

For those of you that are now leaving this establishment, I say, do not forget what went on in these classrooms. Do not abandon those that come after you. We are the new future and we are not going to let tradition stand. We will break down the walls of corruption to let a garden of knowledge grow throughout America. Once educated properly, we will have the power to do anything, and best of all, we will only use that power for good, for we will be cultivated and wise. We will not accept anything at face value. We will ask questions, and we will demand truth.

So, here I stand. I am not standing here as valedictorian by myself. I was molded by my environment, by all of my peers who are sitting here watching me. I couldn't have accomplished this without all of you. It was all of you who truly made me the person I am today. It was all of you who were my competition, yet my backbone. In that way, we are all valedictorians.

I am now supposed to say farewell to this institution, those who maintain it, and those who stand with me and behind me, but I hope this farewell is more of a “see you later” when we are all working together to rear a pedagogic movement. But first, let's go get those pieces of paper that tell us that we're smart enough to do so!

Post Script

Erica Goldson has gone on to fight the tyranny of compulsory government schooling through a partnership with psychologist Tania Luna and a superb website: Renegade Campus @ http://www.RenegadeCampus.com