FREEDOM AND THE ZEK'S ANT

THE LEARNED HELPLESSNESS THEORY OF HISTORY

In his masterwork, The Gulag Ambipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn tells a story about a Zek, a prisoner in the Gulag, who finds an ant in the bottom of his teacup. The Zek notices that the ant is trying to crawl out, so the Zek gently Pushes the ant back down to the bottom. The ant tries to crawl out again, and again the Zek pushes him down. After the third try, the Zek begins to count. One hundred eighty-two times the ant tries to crawl Out. One hundred  eighty-two times the Zek carefully pushes him back down. There is no Try # 183, The ant simply huddles at  the bottom, Occasionally wandering around, but never again does it try to escape The Zek can go away for a while and come back to find the ant still there. It has given Up any attempt to be free.

Solzhenitsyn saw the ant as a metaphor for the Russian people. They had tried and tried and tried to liberate themselves from Communist tyranny, only to find themselves pushed down into Gulags and mass slaughters so many times that they, like the ant, had given up. The Soviet Union was like a giant teacup, where its inhabitants huddled at the bottom and passively accepted the rule Of their Marxist overlord.

I mentioned this story once to Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw. It was back in the 80's when I was spending much of my time developing the "Reagan Doctrine" of US Support for anti-Soviet freedom fighters This entailed my periodically venturing forth into Afghanistan with the Mujahaddin, Nicaragua With the Contras, and other Soviet colonies. Whenever I returned home to California, I would go visit two of my dearest friends, Durk & Sandy, who loved to be regaled by my adventures with the freedom fighters, but would also invariably provide a number of astounding insights on what I had experienced and how it fit into the overall geopolitical picture.

It was 1988, the last year of Ronald Reagan's presidency. The Reagan Doctrine strategy was going well, The Soviets were on the run in Afghanistan, and Eastern Europe was starting to burst open. The goal, however, wasn't simply to divest the Soviet Union of its, external or "outer" colonies. The ultimate goal of the Reagan Doctrine was to break apart the Soviet Union itself. We looked upon the USSR as a colonial empire within its own borders. Only when these "inner" colonies like the Baltics, Ukraine, Georgia, and others were independent would the Soviet Union cease to exist and the Cold War be won. "The big question in our minds right now," I told Durk & Sandy, "is Russia. The Soviet Union is really a Russian colonial empire with Marxis communism as its ideological Justification. Most of the Soviet elite are ethnic Russian. Yet the average Russian has been butchered and oppressed the same as the Ukrainian or Lithuanian. SO figuring out the Cold War end game for Russia itself is difficult."

That's when I told Durk & Sandy the story of Solzlicnitsyn's ant. They both smiled and looked knowingly at one another. "That's no metaphor, Jack," Sandy observed "Right," Durk followed "Solzhenitsyn is more sccurate than he knows. His Zek's ant and his Russian people are suffering from the same neurochemical disaster in their brains."

"Very early on, hundreds of millions of years ago," they explained, "evolution selected for a basic set of chemicals to transmit messages from neuron to neuron in the central nervous system. Everything any animal with a central nervous system does every movement, every reaction to a perception, is performed with these neurochemicals. Without them, messages don't get sent from one brain cell to another and things don't work right. This applies to an ant, an elephant, up the evolutionary ladder to a human being.

"One of these neurochemicals is noradrenaline, the brain's version of adrenaline. It's any animal's 'go-juice,' enabling it to be alert for danger, have the drive to hunt for food, light to defend itself, or in the case of human beings work up the ladder to success in the workplace. If, for some reason, an animal's brain lacks noradrenaline it can't adequately do these survival activities. An interesting example of this is the phenomenon of 'learned helplessness.'

"Experiments have been done with lab rats, placing them in a cage with an electric grid on the bottom. At random intervals the rat's feet get a mild shock, similar to a shock of static electricity we get from touching a door handle after walking over a plush carpet. The rat freaks out over this and tries to escape but it is trapped in the cage. After repeated attempts, the rat gives up. No matter how much the experimenter continues to shock it, the rat will just lie there and take it and here is the important point even if the door to the cage is opened and the rat can clearly see it can now escape it will stay and be shocked. It has learned to be helpless and will no longer try to be free, even when it can easily and obviously do so. When the experimenter then kills the rat and does a chemical analysis of' its brain, he discovers the dramatic depletion of noradrenaline. The animal's brain has 'learned' not to produce more noradrenaline, and thus has 'learned' to be helpless.

"The phenomenon of learned helplessness occurs in human beings just as it does in animals, and has the same neurohemical cause: inadequate noradrenaline production. So what is actually going on in the brain of the Zek's ant and in the brains of' Russians who have given up their desire to be free, is neurochemically identical Solzhcnitsyn is right,"

Trying to avoid mind-pictures (If rat brains ground up into paste for analysis I asked, "But surely they didn't I kill all the rats. Didn't the lab try to figure out some way to re-ignite noradrenaline production In learned helpless rats and then  what happened?"

Durk & Sandy exploded in laughter "They Sure did! And that's when it starts to get interesting! It turns out," they explained that if you give a learned helpless animal the right combination of nutrients and administer them in the right way, the animal's brain Will be able to use them to synthethesize additional noradrenaline. -The 'lab guys' as you call them, did just this, and sure enough, once those rats had plenty of noradrenaline surging through their synapses again they all jumped out of that open cage door real fast!"

Amidst all the mirth, I couldn't help asking, "Wait a minute - are You saying that a bunch of vitamins and stuff Can cure the psycological condition of learned helplessness?"

"You're darned right they can," Durk replied. "Sandy and I have been studying these experiments and others like them for a long time How do you think an animal's brain makes the chemicals it needs in the first place? It takes what we call "precursors" - In the case of noradrenaline the amino acids basic constituents Of proteins L-phertylalaninc or tyrosine
- anti certain other co-factor nutrients to convert them into neurotransinitters The metabolic pathways the brain uses to do this are quite well known now, and are the same whether you are an ant, a rat, or a man. So you can feed them a learned helpless animal thew precursors and it will stop feeling helpless - or you can feed them to all animal before the experiment and it becomes far more resistant to and won't give Up trying to escape."

"How Could we do that for Russians?" I asked them.

Durk and Sandv shrugged. "Well, Russians call take care of themselves," Sandv responded. "Frankly, Durk 311LI I ire more interested ill helping Americans

They're (It(.- ones we have to live among The fewer helpless Americans there are ill(: three Will lie the country where we live "

"By creating certain formulas specifically designed to improve noradrenaline production in a person's brain, and having them commercially available through Our licensees, such as Will Block."

And that's why Will's company carries Blast,- Fast Blast;" Blast Caps,- Rise & Shine." and Ascend 'n See" in the Life Enhancement catalog today. Sad to say, Americans need these formula la% mitre than ever. The Berlin Wall has fallen, the Soviet Union has vanished and the Cold War ha% been won, yet America is steadily losing freedom rather than gaining more. The cancer of politically correct rule% (for, among others the nutritional supplements market) and criminal penalties for violating them con. tinues to metastasize through Amarican life. The carcinogens arc a malignant array of facist federal bureaucracies, like the IRS, the EPA (Environmental Pro section Agency), the FDA, ant: the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) designed and rationalized by politicians whose purpose is to make People dependent upon them. People who arc dependant on YOU ire people who vote for you and look the other way, no matter what crimes you commit.

America is indeed a democracy However, democracy does not equal freedom but is merely on of the preconditions for it. It quite concievable to have democratic form of' tyranny upon a citizenry, not be 11 dictator who seized power be but by freely elected Ica( cis Remember at Adolf I-lit], was voted into power with over ,So'!',, of the Vote. Ill fact, this the direction towards whit: America has been moving for some time. And the particular type of tyranny is not socialist or comminist -- it is fascist.

A socialist or communist government is one which outright owns all major business systems the airlines, banks, phone companies, et al. A fascist government does not nationalize ownership (and accept resultant responsibility) but instead control,; private business completely through extreme bureaucratic regulation. Just as a socialist government can be an unelected dictatorship like ( Cuba )i.1 freely democracy like
Sweeden, so can a facist government Democratic facism, or a facist democracy is no more an oxy-
morondemocracy than democratic socialism or a socialist democracy instead democratic fascism is the most accurate description  of what America's political system has become 'I The freedoms   guaranteed by the I Declaration of Independence and the Constitution have not been taken away by dictators for(:(:, bolt arc being voluntarily surrendered.

Reflecting on this the other day, I gave Durk and Sandy a call "Do you guys think that learned helplessness call be self- induced My question "';Lire," came response "it
explains 3 lot about bureaocrats arc taking over lives Learned helplessness not having the
confidence you can do something oil your Own to make things better So many Americans have their hand out in sonic way and demand a guarantco: of -the outcome they want rather than accept responsibility for how their life turns out This fascism that you're talking about Jack is the political consequence of self-induced learned helplessness

Sandy continued, I think that as a whole, women in general tend to vote for people who promise to take care of them They seem to have an assumption of helplessness that may lie in a genetic tendency to produce less or be less sensitive to nonadrenaline line. for example, look at the Republicans problems with the so. called 'soccer moms who arc upset that government programs may be taken away. They are unwilling to say, I can handle ill),situation and don't need sonic government handout Just look around - how many women do you see fighting the system and truly politically incorrect',, We need a lot more women like Margaret Thatcher or congresswonem like Helen Chenoweth (R) but unfortunately, they are rare.

"How do we get them?" I inquired "Actually we need a lot more men like Margaret Thatcher too "

"Well," came Sandy's reply, "we're happy I(- see that the Li fe Enhancement family is embarking oil a concentrated retail effort it) make Mir noradrenaline lieprecursor more widely available The biochemical route is much and easier to emplement (11,111 ',lie behavioral route. You Call induce a behavioral change (like overcoming or being more resistant to learned biochemically (like giving

"Exactly," Durk answered. "Too many, Americans are trapped behind many a Berlin Wall of their own making. With Our formulas which are available through Life Enhancement Products, they can break down their personal Berlin Wall and liberate themselves from nutritional imbalances and deficiencies that cause helplessness."

"Going from self-induced learned helplessness to self-liberation ... it's what we want for America " Sandy

It's What I want too./