As a child, I was an avid reader of the popular Mad Magazine, a periodical that spoofed and lampooned many of the facets of American culture. Perhaps those very books planted the seeds of what is now the Institute of Unlearning. While much of Mad Magazine's content was and is absolutely silly, there have always been very insightful and critical observations about politics and the economy. As I rummaged through some of my archives this week, I came across a Mad issue dated the winter of 1979. I was reminded of how little things have really changed.

This editorial will quote sections from the issue's Economics Primer. The primer first appeared sometime during Ford's presidency a few years earlier. Let's take a look at the following passage.

As our nation struggles to get our economy back on track, few in Washington have any answers that really make sense. If you haven't figured it out just yet, the next passage illustrates where American financial priorities have always been.

Nothing has changed much in nearly thirty years. It would be more accurate to say that nothing has really changed in hundreds of years. Many governments, not just the United States, have constantly cried "broke!" when people turned to them for help in creating a society that is fair and compassionate. But when there is a war to be fought, and the opportunity for corporations to make a tremendous profit, all of a sudden there is money to burn!

George Bush and the politicians in Washington want to cut back on their tax relief deals yet spend nearly $500 billion on this current round in the war against terror. Most Americans were asleep at the wheel when it was announced last year that the Pentagon had lost several TRILLION dollars over the years. The money was totally unaccounted for, publicly that is. I'm sure the black budgets projects we and other governments are working on might have an idea of where that money went.

You could easily substitute the name of more current puppets into the previous verse and still get the same result. As an example we could use Mr. Karzai of Afghanistan. Before we invaded that country, the oppressive Taliban regime had virtually eliminated the production of opium, used to make heroin, in that country. Since the US liberation/occupation of that country, opium production has enjoyed the highest levels ever and the CIA has even tighter control of its worldwide drug dealing operations.

You could also plug Saddam Hussein into that verse, our former friend now "turned" nemesis, and whoever else will be the new installed leader of Iraq. There will be little doubt that the main goal of the new leader will be the appeasement of "US interests" in that region. This basically means that Halliburton, formerly run by Dick Cheney, and The Carlyle Group, which holds much of the Bush family's wealth, should get most of the contracts for reconstructing Iraq.

So as our stock markets teeter on the brink of a much larger collapse, Americans can feel secure in the knowledge that our government is working hard to make life easier on the rich. Spending money on destruction is always a good investment because it guarantees the need for construction. This is one of the reasons why the US was in such a rush to start the war in Iraq. Way down at the bottom of that list was some silly talk about human rights and democracy.

The Institute of Unlearning is committed to exposing the lies and propaganda surrounding the supposedly "legitimate" actions of nation-states. While the United States and Great Britain are easy targets to lampoon at the moment, it must be remembered by humans everywhere that most governments operate under these very same premises. This is because most governments are the front men for extremely wealthy, unseen powers.

Finally, we are left with a few more gems from this magazine:

The Institute of Unlearning believes that humans everywhere do have a choice. Once you unlearn yourself of all the outmoded and insane ideas of the present worldview, what comes into view is a life in which all things are possible. What does an economy based on human values look like? Well, let's shake the fog off of our collective consciousness, roll up our sleeves, and get to work imagining what that might be!

WHOSE LIFE ARE YOU LIVING?