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Note: This is the first edition. I plan on revising every few months as I get feedback from my readers. Feel free to send me an email with your comments.

Contents


Important Read this first!                                     1

Chapter 1 What is the problem?                          2

Chapter 2 How did we get into this mess           27
    (A discussion of our education system)

Chapter 3 Men & Women                                     40
    Love & Relationships

Chapter 4 Our Health                                            61

Chapter 5 Religion                                                 70

Chapter 6 Government & Corruption                 87
(Business, Media and Special Interest Groups)

Chapter 7 How can we fix this mess.                  110
A call to action

Suggested list of materials                                   103
IS THIS REALLY TRUE? Page 4



Why should, knowing what is true, be important to you as a responsible individual?

Well, is getting a divorce something you should look forward to? Do you enjoy paying a lot of money for your gasoline and diesel fuel?

What about all the soldiers that have died or been injured in Iraq or Afghanistan? Do you know that our public school system has been on a steady decline since the early sixties and our cost (taxes) for public education is about double what it costs for a good private school.

Knowing what is true and what is questionable or false will help you in your personal relationships, improve your decision making at work and help you get a better job or move up the ladder in your place of employment.

Now I am sure, you my reader is saying, “I keep hearing about many things being untrue. Isn't the TV program 20 20 all about telling us what is not true? There are already a lot of books and programs telling us what is false, so, why do I need to read this book?

You are asking a good question. Although there are a lot of examples in this book, the primary objective is to teach you some
IS THIS REALLY TRUE? Page 5



skills and give you confidence in the skills that you already have, so you can correctly decide for yourself what is true, possibly true, questionable or just a pack of lies.

Stossel of 20/20 and many others have been and still are telling us about the lies, cheating and corruption that we have to deal with on a regular basis. But, what Stossel and the others don't do, is tell us how we, as ordinary people, can figure out what is right and wrong for ourselves.

Of course ordinary people don't have access to a large staff of investigators or the time to investigate everything that they are told. So does this mean that we have to trust somebody to give us the answers and hope they are not making even bigger fools out of us?

No! We can do a good job of figuring out what is probably the truth without the help of any experts.

I wrote this book to teach you how to do that. How you can see through the nonsense and reduce the number of times that you are made a fool of. There are a lot of skillful scam artists and liars out there, so I am not promising that you will be able to see through all of them all the time. But, we can make it harder for them to get to you.
IS THIS REALLY TRUE? Page 27



Chapter 2


How did we get into this mess?
(A discussion of our Public School System)

What is learning, education and training?

From my experience as a student and a teacher, I have come to the conclusion that people are born with a desire to learn. As a young child, we want to learn about everything. As we grow older, this desire to learn is suppressed, but not eliminated. A few of us get to unleash our learning, some for only a short time and a few for much longer.

I taught at a vocational school for a few years and had the opportunity to unleash the learning in my students. This was a very enjoyable experience for both myself and my students. For my students, this was one of the hardest things most of them had ever done, but it was also one of the more enjoyable experiences of what was a difficult life for most of them.

Since I am not going to provide you, the reader, with a lot of documentation, concerning many of the statements and accusations that I will be making throughout this book, I will,
IS THIS REALLY TRUE? Page 28



instead tell you a little about myself.

One of my personal heroes is Eric Hoffer. He wrote a number of books, of which the “The True Believer” is one of my favorites.

Eric Hoffer was born in New York in 1902 and at the age of five, he learned to read. At the age of seven, he received a head injury which left him blind until he was 15, when his sight returned. He missed most of his schooling and the normal experiences of growing up. Getting his sight back obviously motivated him to do a lot of reading. He worked as a gold miner and longshoreman in California and there is no record of him ever attending any public schools or classes in the local colleges.

He did make use of his library card and became familiar with all of the great thinkers throughout history. His books were so well received by the academic community, that the universities were competing with each other to give him honorary advanced degrees. I have personally been influenced by his method of looking at mass movements in his book the “The True Believer.” To some extent, I have tried to copy his way of looking at things in this book.

I regret that I did not start my working life as a writer or journalist. It was not until much later in life that my supervisor at the vocational school where I was teaching noticed that I like to write and arranged for me to get a series
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Chapter 5

Religion


I gave this chapter the title, Religion, although I am not sure it is a fair word to use. Instead of Religion, it would be more accurate to call it “the reality that we only get a small glimpse off.” But, that is too many words for a title.

I advocate being socially forceful in challenging what is wrong, and I will get into that in more detail later in the book, but with that in mind, I am using this chapter to “bare my soul” in a way that I am sure will create some controversy among many of my friends. But if I am going to ask you to stand up and be heard when it is difficult to do, then I must do the same.

Much of what I think is probably the reality of who we are and what life and our existence is all about, has come from reading a lot of alternative health literature, the Bible, other historical documents, personal experiences and my discussions with others and their experiences.

I have about 70 years of personal experience, and I am not sure a
IS THIS REALLY TRUE? Page 71



person with less experience can accept all that I have written in this chapter.

I would like for you to think about what I have written here and possibly discuss it with your friends or your spouse and consider the possibility that maybe some or all of what I have to say here may have some merit.

What about religion vs reality?


I am not a religious scholar and I have no strong belief system, but, I do try to observe what is going on around me. In the many churches that I have attended, I have noticed that the primary concern that is usually “prayed for” is health, although, the primary objective for most religious organizations appears to be increasing their membership and obtaining financial support for their activities.

I do think that most of the main line Churches provide a valuable service to the community and their members. People are social creatures and the Church provides a place to visit and socialize with neighbors and friends. Some churches provide valuable social services to the community and people in need.

I have attended various Christian Churches for most of my life and I have enjoyed the fellowship and company of the other