God Help All Little Children Read, Write and Spell

In this world of proliferating complexity and educational requirements; where the illiterate and under-educated will be marginalized and excluded at ever increasing peril to human survival; it is imperative that the very medium of communication be made most readily accessible to all people. Our suggested revision of the English language is the most direct step conceivable in this direction; it might well be the only such step since traditional written English, if left in place, would always block and frustrate any other reforms. Once reform is adopted, the transition could be complete in less than a decade and the future of universal human discourse set on a rational foundation. Traditional written English is a Berlin Wall imprisoning the world's illiterate -- our own children and grandchildren included -- in a regime of ignorance and poverty. When we tear down the wall, millions will pour across the artificial boundary that has kept them in servitude and they will then be free to participate in a world better for everyone--

--Now we have to imagine that this all-encompassing hostile experience has by the age of 11 occupied half a lifetime with no end in sight. And there is no end. The shock, frustration, despair, apathy, fear, disaffection, alienation, hostility and in many cases even violence of the afflicted children become permanent personality traits.

We characterize these permanent negative personality changes as a form of 'Post Traumatic Stress Disorder'. The psychology profession has a much more narrow definition limiting PTSD to the stress of isolated but extremely intense life-threatening events. Elian Gonzalez's initial experience -- watching his mother drown and spending two days alone in an inner-tube adrift in the Atlantic -- is a prototype of such an event. Another common example is physical child-abuse, particularly rape and incest. We expand the definition of causative stresses -- validly we are convinced -- to include not just intense physical stresses suffered in a catastrophic incident, but also primarily emotional stresses suffered repeatedly over a much greater time. The emotional stress of repeated incest distinguishes it from rape in this respect, because violence and a singlular catastrophic event of very real physical mortal threat are not usually an element of incest. Another extreme example included in our definition would be brainwashing -- a process of emotional abuse explicitly designed to break down and restructure the victim's whole personality.

A third example is the stress accompanying confinement. Studies of the psychological reaction of WWII prisoners of war show a threshold effect: confinement under even extreme conditions for less than two years seemed to do no permanent damage; for more than two years the incidence of personality change was widespread. Senator John McCain appears to be one who recovered marvelously from the effects of his confinement during the Vietnam War, but in his autobiography recalls '' I couldn't control my despair. All my pride was lost, and I doubted I would ever stand up to any man again. Nothing could save me.''