The opportunity that I had to study at Yale College as an undergraduate and later at Harvard University for my Ph.D., the chance I had to wander among the gothic buildings, to imbibe confidence and purpose, and to learn to think, learn how things work, from distinguished scholars, was a point of stubborn pride for me when I started my career as a professor, but that legacy had devolved into a nightmare, into a travesty.
I watched up close how the thoughtful and insightful men and women who were my classmates at Yale and Harvard, who were my colleagues as a professor, responded to the horrific institutional decay of the United States over the past two decades. Sadly, although I remember fondly the moments of deep insight and kind exchanges of those good old days, I observed how they, as intellectuals, as lawyers, doctors, engineers, executives, professors and government officials, how they betrayed their fellow citizens and buried the wisdom they had obtained at those temples of learning deep in the excrement of fraud and hypocrisy.
You see, they forgot the entire point of that elite education they had received. It was not supposed to be something you boasted about, or that you possessed like a yacht[P1] or a racehorse, a special key that got you into the club. No! That sort of thinking is the outgrowth of deep moral decay.
That education was a privilege alright, but one that brought with it an absolute obligation to serve society, to stand up bravely for the interests of the nation, and above all for the interests of those who have not had the opportunity to learn how the system works, to study about science and technology, about foreign lands and ancient things.
That is right, you were given special tools that few had access to. They were given to you so that you could use them, use them to help society, especially in times of need, in times of crisis.
And yes, that moment of crisis inevitably came. The 2000 election came, a moment when the entire federal government was taken over by multinational corporations and a handful of the wealthy. I looked around and my colleagues and friends acted as if nothing had happened. They took the fictions of the New York Times as their gospel and clung ever tighter to their privileges.
Then came the collapse of the twin towers, the last card in the Tarot deck, a modern miracle that belongs the Book of Revelations. In other words, a massive fraud that any high school student who has taken a semester of physics could see through.
And yet again, my colleagues from Yale and Harvard were silent; in many cases, they appeared at think tank seminars, on television, to promote this blatant fiction, and to use it as a justification for endless foreign wars, for the transfer of wealth to the billionaires.
It was, sadly, nothing other than the treason of the intellectuals.
I know that the billionaires were ultimately behind this, using their pawns and pets, but if the intellectuals, the upstanding members of society who have the specialized knowledge, the ability to write effectively, and the confidence to use those skills, if they had not sided with the establishment, if they had asked the most basic questions, the drive for war into Afghanistan, into Iraq, into Syria, and into another dozen nations, ending at the doorsteps of Russia and China, that downwards spiral could never have started.
And then there I was again, in January of 2020, right there in Washington DC, watching in amazement as the utterly contrived and unconvincing COVID-19 pandemic was rolled out for mass consumption. I knew that my colleagues were smart enough to see through that circus from the start, but almost without exception, they bought into the farce with enthusiasm, with pride and glee.
Some of them with medical expertise lent their credentials to this sinister operation.
I am an extremely limited man and I cannot claim any remarkable achievements, but I can say that it was obvious to me that the 2000 election, the 9.11 attacks, and the drive for war with Afghanistan and Iraq were a fraud and I spoke openly, and unambiguously, about these crimes at that moment.
I felt that it was my obligation as an educated American. It was, in a sense, the entire purpose of the education I had received.
My efforts, my dismissal from my job, and how I was forced out of the country, remain taboo topics for my colleagues from Yale and Harvard. Mentioning what was done to me, and to others like me, for opposing the COVID-19 fraud is also a no-no in the best of circles.
Let me say, dear colleagues, that I was also at fault. I did not do enough, especially to engage working people, and I overestimated my own capacity to effect change. I was limited by the subtle arrogance of the Ivy League I had imbibed and it took me two decades to relearn.
That is my confession, my apology, and my pledge to do better.
Now, dear colleagues, it is your turn. Admit to yourself, and to those around you, that you wrong, that you betrayed the trust placed in you by society, by those around you who did not receive such illustrious educations, when you played stupid in the face of the 2000 elections, the 9.11 incident, the drive for world war starting in Afghanistan, and finally the operation COVID-19 pandemic.
We can be forgiving of your mistakes, but only if you are ready to ask for forgiveness.
We are waiting now, for your answers, for your pledges, and for your actions. We hope you will make proper use of the educations that you have received at this moment of national crisis.
Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments. Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020.