The Deliberate Misconception of Socialism

Meme found on Facebook

If you do a Google search of the definition of socialism, you will find a progressive definition of socialism and a progressive definition of socialism in history, both of which are historically incorrect. Both definitions bear a glaring discrepancy to reality and embody the progressives’ utopian dreams.

The first progressive definition of socialism is a “political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.” This could not be further from the truth. No community could regulate or own anything under socialism.

The definition of socialism in history is also factually incorrect. It defines socialism as a “range of economic and social systems characterized by social ownership of the means of production and workers’ self-management.” Workers never self-managed under socialism. They may have hidden at work in a warehouse to take naps during the workday but that would be the extent of self-management.

The real definition of a socialist society is the government’s ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. Not at any point could the proletariat self-manage, they were told what to do by apparatchiks under the strict guidance of the Communist Party. Socialism was and still is a pre-cursor stage to communism.

The aggressive mass media, academia, and social media controllers’ agenda of indoctrination of the population is obvious at every corner by those of us who studied real (not manufactured) history and have lived under socialism.

The handsomely paid agents of indoctrination know what they are doing, and it seems to be working well with the low information voters and their fellow travelers who use Facebook and other social media as a source of information via memes cleverly designed for maximum misinformation/disinformation.

For example, a recent meme designed by Uncle Jack states “Republicans want you to be afraid of socialism! ‘Socialism’ means that we pool our resources to provide things for everyone! In America today, that includes: fire departments, police departments, public schools, public hospitals, veterans benefits, national weather service, roads and bridges, unemployment insurance, drinking water, military, NTSA, Medicare, Social Security, FEMA, G.I. Bill, Food and Drug Safety, CDC, NASA, sewers, bank deposit insurance, hazardous waste disposal and clean-up.” It continues by asking in boldface lettering reminiscent of Halloween, “So which of these current SOCIALIST programs scare you?”

For starters none of those listed represent socialism, they are services provided by the local, state, and federal governments with taxpayer funds accumulated from taxation, dues, fees, etc.

Schools are paid by property taxes in the U.S.  Under socialism, nobody owns property because the government controls everything. Schools are indoctrination tools run by the government and their indoctrinated teaching agents.

Police departments in the U.S. can apply for grants from the federal government under strict guidelines from agencies such as the USDA’s Community Facilities Direct Loan & Grant Program. Tax dollars from citizens pay for police and firefighters and each state is vastly different. Under socialism, the government controls the police and its funding under different levels of monitoring in order to keep the population under control.

Public hospitals are funded by the Department of Health. Patients pay a small nominal fee.

Health care is paid for by government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, private health insurance, and by out-of-pocket expenditures.

Developed countries except for the U.S. have partially or fully, publicly funded health care systems. They are not free; they are either financed by heavy taxation or via compulsory health insurance. Nothing is FREE.

In the U.S., state and local health departments receive their funds from grants (taxpayers’ money) given by the Prevention and Public Health Fund established under the Affordable Care Act passed by Obama in 2010 at Christmas time, with only Democrat input.

Medicare is financed through payroll taxes, premiums, and federal tax revenues.

Medicaid is tax-funded and administered by the individual states which operate the program with federal guidelines. Some individuals get free medical care while others must pay a nominal fee. Illegal immigrants and asylum refugees receive free care from the moment they cross our borders unlawfully.

In 2017, the U.S. spent about $3.5 trillion or 18% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on health expenditures more than twice the average among other developed countries.

According to taxpolicy.org in 2018 the federal government alone spent $1.1 trillion on health care; $583 billion on Medicare, $399 billion on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance (CHIP) and $70 billion on veterans’ medical care.

Medical organizations are funded by credit, venture capital, donations, grants, savings, subsidies, and taxes. Such medical organizations did not exist under socialism.

Veterans benefits was approved by Congress’ $86.5 billion in discretionary funding. The money comes from federal taxation which all working Americans pay. The U.S. Department of Veteran affairs requested a total of $220.2 billion in fiscal year 2020, a 9.6 percent increase over 2019.

Veterans were promised benefits for their service for their country and active duty in peacetime and wars. Their salaries are much lower and are not commensurate with their sacrifice. These veteran benefits are not welfare, they have earned them. They pay health insurance premiums for their medical care.

The national weather service (NWS) is an agency of the United States federal government and is funded by taxpayer dollars. We did not have a national weather service system under socialism. We were on our own when disaster struck, and nobody warned us beforehand. The government did not see fit to invest in such endeavor because nobody paid ANY taxes. We were serfs to the government’s whims.

Roads and bridges are funded through federal grants to state and local governments via taxation. One-quarter of spending on roads and bridges comes from the federal government, the rest financed by state and local governments. Gas taxes, tolls, user fees, license plate taxes, income, sales and property taxes are used to maintain infrastructure which varies from state to state. The Highway Trust Fund for highway and mass transit programs awards grants to localities and states. Under socialism, paved roads were scarce and deficient because there were no taxes levied by the government or paid by the proletariat.

Unemployment insurance is paid by employers and is not a feature of socialism.  It is a tax collected by state and federal governments. It is part of payroll taxes. The employer payroll taxes include: Social Security taxes (6.2%), Medicare taxes (1.45% of wages), and federal unemployment taxes (FUTA).

Drinking water is controlled by the Safe Drinking Water Act which authorizes the EPA, a federal agency supported with taxpayer dollars of those who pay taxes. The act establishes minimum standards to protect tap water and requires all private, public owners or operators of public water systems to comply with the standards. Water infrastructure includes systems of water supply, treatment, storage, water resource management, flood prevention, and hydropower. Different private and public owners and agencies control the water infrastructure. It has nothing to do with socialism, on the contrary.

Under socialism, the government controlled the water supply and delivery. Rivers and canals were polluted, water was substandard, and it was delivered whenever the government rulers decided to do so. A few hours during the day cold water flowed, but hot water was in short supply or non-existent, and, in summer time, there was no water at all as the mighty government had to do maintenance for three months and the people were supplied drinking water via cisterns that combed the neighborhoods.

Sewage treatment is the responsibility of each municipal wastewater treatment plants. It is a service provided to the citizens for a monthly fee. It is not socialism either as these are owned by various towns and even private companies that have invested in the wastewater treatment facilities.

The four branches of the military, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force are funded by Congress through the federal budget. The money comes from taxation and again, it is federalism, not socialism. For FY 2019, the Department of Defense budget is approximately $693 billion.

Social Security is not socialism, on the contrary, it is welfare for the federal government which dips into the fund to transfer money to other agencies, for other spending as they see fit. The Social Security program is funded by the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax, a payroll tax. The tax is assessed at a rate of 6.2% of income paid by employer, and another 6,2% paid by employee. The self-employed pay the full 12.4% tax. “The money that employees and employers pay into the fund through taxes is not the same money that you will receive later in life.”

FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency established by executive order by President Carter in 1979 which merged many disaster-related responsibilities at the federal level. It is funded by taxpayer dollars. It is not socialism at all. Socialist governments usually leave their citizens to deal on their own with natural disasters and wait on capitalist nations such as the U.S. to donate food, water, blankets, medical help, and other resources when disasters strike. I know because we survived a terrible earthquake in 1977 and we went hungry, cold, and homeless for days, and had to find our own sources of water.

G.I. Bill is a term that refers to any educational benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs to members of Active Duty, Selected Reserve and National Guard Armed Forces, and their families. The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (the G.I. Bill) was a law that provided a range of benefits for returning WWII veterans. The G.I. Bill is part of their otherwise low military pay, for their service, sacrifice, and putting their lives on the line, it is not an entitlement and not socialism as the lefties imply.

Food and Drug Safety falls under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration (a taxpayer funded bureaucracy) which “protects the public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, and by ensuring the safety of our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation.” There is no socialism there.

CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) is a federal agency (taxpayer funded) under the Department of Health and Human Services and as such it receives federal funding from Congress with funds from taxpayers.

CDC Foundation receives charitable contributions and philanthropic grants from individuals, foundations, corporations, universities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other organizations to advance the work of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is not socialism. Socialist governments do not have the equivalent of the CDC.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the civilian space program. It is funded by research opportunities with other government agencies, private, and non-profit sectors. It has nothing to do with socialism, on the contrary, it benefits from the existence of capitalism. Socialist governments did not have money for such research or even other types of research. There is a reason why most discoveries came from capitalist economies, never socialist ones. Barack Obama defunded NASA’s shuttle space flights and research in 2010. Since then, NASA bought seats on the Russian space flights.

Bank deposit insurance protect deposits of individuals covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). This is a private corporation with shareholders even though the name federal implies ownership by the U.S. government – it is not. The deposit insurance fund is mandated by law for each Federal Reserve Bank to set aside money and to pay back up to $100,000 per depositor in case of failure of a financial institution.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) does not receive Congressional money, it is funded by insurance payments made by banks. So, it has nothing to do with socialism, on the contrary, it is capitalist finance. Socialism has one bank only, that which is owned by the central government and they do whatever they want with the depositor’s cash. They often confiscate at whim the funds of citizens they don’t deem socialist enough or who have offended the socialist government in some way.

Hazardous waste disposal and clean-up funding comes from taxpayers; states pay ten percent of cleanup costs, fifty percent if the state operated the facility responsible for contamination, and the company which polluted is responsible for cleanup. By law, the parties responsible for use, transportation, storage, and disposal of hazardous substances/waste and oil are liable for costs. This is not socialism at all.

As we can plainly see, the disinformation of the Left is quite insidious and unfortunately millions and millions of low information voters and illegal aliens who vote but don’t speak English, fall for the Left’s inflammatory, misinformed, deceitful rhetoric and memes which are generously funded by billionaires who stand to profit from their deception.

Twenty More Years of Socialism and No Good-Byes

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2015 ASTRA

When I left Romania after twenty years of frugal subsistence and tyranny under Ceausescu’s communist regime, I thought the nightmare was over, I was moving to America, the land of freedom and opportunity, and everything would be all right. All I had to do is study and educate myself as fast as I could.

There were so many opportunities to succeed! I worked very hard and I eventually transformed these opportunities into success. Nothing was given to me on a silver platter and I certainly did not have white privilege, on the contrary, I was told time and time again when I looked for a job that I was not a protected minority. I watched classmates with lower grades and ability, who learned to milk the rigged system, get jobs they did not deserve simply because they had a different skin color.

Something did not feel quite right in the academic environment I chose. I felt that I had escaped one nightmare 7,000 miles away, leaving behind forever my beloved family, and jumped into another bad dream, one run by American academics and administrators.

If I were to survive, I had to learn new skills to cope in the more covert communistic environment rigged in favor of tenured liberals who protected, rewarded, promoted, and tenured nobody else but more liberals.

I am not sure I could endure it today, considering the appalling communism in the American academia, on every American campus, where free thought and divergent opinions are not allowed; the faculty and administrators are no longer hiding their communist agenda. Campuses have become breeding grounds for future anarchists of America who are carefully shaped and selected for their robotic ignorance of anything of value and vitriolic aggression.

I had spent my last contract weeks in 2008 in the vaunted hallways of academia shredding every Economics lesson I had ever taught to my college students and to my gifted 11^th and 12^th graders in a southern school, in preparation for my retirement.

By shredding all my papers and lesson plans, I somehow wanted to erase the twenty years of frustration and pain I had experienced with some of my socialist colleagues and one administrator after another who were eager to serve the collectivist cause of social justice rather than merit, uniqueness, and excellence. In retrospect I wish today that I had kept the lessons. I also left behind all the foreign language dictionaries and many lesson plans I had developed. I am sure they were thrown out as soon as I had vacated my office and turned in the key.

I was not surprised that none of my colleagues moved a finger to celebrate my retirement. But an active parent, who appreciated my teaching, organized a collective celebration for me, two other retiring colleagues, and an administrator.

At the time, I was the longest serving teacher since the founding of the school. I walked out the door, without fanfare, a thank you for my service, good-byes, appreciation, or even an “I love myself” certificate or plaques that were so generously given to my colleagues over the years. In the grand scheme of things it does not matter anyway.

I did not realize how bad it was until the liberal newspaper whose owners also controlled the mass-media in the small town, refused to run a paid ad about my retirement. It is impossible not to know in a small town who all the prominent teachers are, especially someone like me who did not promote their societally-regressive agenda which they euphemistically named progressivism. At the same time, they ran free one-page news stories on the retirement of the administrator after four years of “service” and of my two colleagues. I was persona-non-grata no matter how I sliced reality.

The sad reality was that a few highly progressive families in town owned pretty much anything of value, including the minds of current and future Americans.

Most of my former students, with few notable exceptions, became devoted liberals, lawyers, feminists, doctors, advocates for social justice, heavily involved in global citizenship efforts, international non-profits, and teachers who proudly impart Common Core “values” to their students, the new generations of “progressives.”

I was one of the best paid teachers in the state at the time, not because I was the darling of the socialists surrounding me, but because I deserved it and few if any could replace me. I could teach four entirely different subjects with ease and knowledge, Economics and three foreign languages. Nobody else could match that skill or take it away from me.

I walked out the door with a sense of personal accomplishment in the face of so much adversity but also of regret for my twenty years of service that I wasted on progressive ingrates. By the time they reached my classroom, most of the students had already been thoroughly indoctrinated into socialism/communism as a perfect societal ideology.

The moment I walked out the door, a sense of freedom overwhelmed me - I had successfully survived the second communist phase of my life. The first one was escaping from communist Romania in 1978.

The small southern town was a safe place at the time to raise a family even for a single parent like me. Colleagues had asked me repeatedly how I could be anything else but a Democrat, when I was a teacher, a woman, a single mom, and a foreigner.

We were not legal immigrants in the late seventies; we were foreigners/aliens with a green card. I did not mind the term “alien” as long as I was not going back to the communist Iron Curtain and the oppressing life. I still don’t find the term offensive today. We were alien to these lands and to its customs.

It was not an auspicious time to be a foreigner/alien then. Nobody fawned over us, we had to have legal papers to be in the country, and we had to be healthy. In other words, we were properly vetted because legal immigration was strictly enforced and was not meant to benefit the immigrants but the American people.

There were not exactly many Romanians in the south, we were pretty much oddities coming from a faraway country that nobody had any idea where it was geographically located, nor did they care. That feeling extended to my American children who eventually felt frustrated and perhaps understood the feeling of isolation, of being different.

When they were smaller, they would beg my mom and me not to speak Romanian in public because people stared at us. My children were quite embarrassed to speak a foreign language fluently but they appreciated that skill as adults. Many families would not allow their children to play with mine and we were followed in stores as if we were going to rob it at gunpoint.

They did not know how many times, while I was pushing a stroller with mom, we were asked to leave mom and pop stores as our business was not welcome there. I swallowed my pride and went about my business. Mom, even though she did not speak English, intuitively understood the insults. But we did not allow that offensive and ignorant behavior to define who we were. These people were not xenophobic; they were ignorant and fearful.

But one store welcomed our business with open arms, and the owner’s son became our friend to this day. Of Jewish faith, perhaps he understood more than he let on the difficulty of being different in a small southern town.

Times have changed and now illegal immigrants and economic refugees from non-Christian lands rule the country; southerners and Americans in general bend over backwards to please them, rolling the red carpet and spreading their hard-earned wealth to economic refugees through generous welfare programs. I wished they had extended just a smidgen of kindness to us; we would have felt so much better.

I was lucky to find Lois and Harold, with their two lovely daughters. Through a twist of fate, they became our adopted family. We had spent many holidays with them and visited them through the years. I am not sure I could have adjusted so well to southern life without their help and advice.

There were other legal immigrants like us and they were treated the same. We formed our own club and helped each other the best we could with advice, food, clothes, rental money for expensive apartments in a college town, adjustment to a foreign life, and translation services for citizenship papers.

We cooked ethnic foods and had monthly pot luck suppers in the homes of those who were lucky enough to have afforded to purchase a home. Most of us were poor students hailing from communist and other totalitarian regimes, often struggling to raise and feed a family in a small apartment or a tiny rented house.

To my knowledge, those friends I made became contributing members to our society and, I am almost certain, they never promoted utopian communism.

Progressives Are Not Giving Up, the War Rages On

There is some hope for America as the dark cloud of global communism has temporarily dissipated. We won this battle but the war rages on with a vengeance. The Democrat coffers are full and young people are bought and duped with ease. The New World Order, the communist insurgency, is almost complete.

The Democrat left is now going after the Electoral College members to change their votes from their state’s winner, Donald Trump, to the Democrat loser. Their campaign of intimidation, threats, paid rioters, and fake outrage coming from liberal, anti-American campuses, is supported non-stop by the MSM rhetoric of hate and division and Hollywood turned bad role-model know-it-alls.

Progressives know that this is the only way, to beat citizens down until they agree to elect presidents by popular vote. When they do, the communists will have succeeded in permanently altering elections in the U.S. The over-populated Democrat coastal states will forever determine the elections, the rest of the country will become irrelevant, and globalists will rule.

“The West has won the Cold War but there is now more communism in the West than ever before.” The Americans’ idea of fighting global communism is sporting popular license plates with the Gadsden flag, “Don’t tread on me,”and “Coexist” bumper stickers.

Tom DeWeese, President of the American Policy Center, stated in a recent article,

“They know full well that they aren’t going to overturn the election. These privately-funded forces are being used to create pressure to destroy the Electoral College so they won’t have to deal with it next election. This is how the Left operates. Make a big deal over here to force the hidden agenda over there. The plan is to make enough trouble that Congress will move to abolish the EC to get some peace.”

And who is behind this effort? In DeWeese’s opinion, “One only has to watch to see which member of Congress proposes such action. The answer of course is California Senator Barbara Boxer. It only took a week after the election for her to come to the rescue of the broken and distraught Left.” http://fairfaxfreecitizen.com/2016/11/22/the-anti-trump-riots-are-a-smoke-screen-the-real-goal-eliminate-the-electoral-college/

A large and diverse crowd at the Institute of Texan Cultures in San Antonio, witnessed the U.S. citizenship ceremony presided by the federal Judge, John Primomo. The federal Judge took the opportunity to scold the newly-minted American citizens, who have taken an oath of allegiance under one flag, that Donald Trump is their President Elect.

“I can assure you that whether you voted for him or you did not vote for him, if you are a citizen of the United States, he is your president. He will be your president and if you do not like that, you need to go to another country.”

He criticized the protesters who shout disrespectfully and carry signs that read, “He is not my president.” Judge Primomo also condemned athletes who bend a knee during the national anthem.

“I detest that, because you can protest things that happen in this country; you have every right to. You don’t do that by offending national symbols like the national anthem and the flag of the United States.” http://www.kens5.com/news/politics/federal-judge-if-you-dont-like-trump-you-should-go-to-another-country/353652060

The federal magistrate judge for the Western District of Texas was promptly suspended because he offended leftist sensibilities. The federal district judges in San Antonio “have determined that he will no longer be handling citizenship ceremonies, and the judges are meeting with him to see how this matter can be resolved and concluded.” http://www.governing.com/topics/politics/tns-primomo-judge-trump.html

Americans are the luckiest people on the planet yet the paid anarchists came out for $15 an hour to say that America was never great, that we are a racist and intolerant country. If that is the case why are people around the world flocking to America? Are they doing it for the generous welfare system?

What is wrong with these misguided Americans? Have they ever traveled to an intolerant totalitarian regime that kills and stones women to death and pushes gays off buildings? Have they had to do without food, a place to live, without their beloved smart devices, without their automobiles, without abundant grocery stores filled with food to the brim, without toilet paper, without medical care, drugs, hospitals, and a clean bed? Were they stopped for I.D. checks, arrested, beaten, tortured? Do they understand how lucky they are to have been born in the one country that has been the envy of the world, the country they are so eager to destroy?

We keep hearing from this administration and the left, “This is not the American way, this is not who we are.” What is the American way? Is the American way what progressives decide? Is the American way what globalists, the Islamists, and the gay lobby decide? If we disagree with them, and we do, they are going to ram the leftist communist ideology down our throats. If we protest, we are racists, islamophobes, bigots, homophobes, and all the other words the suffix “phobe” can be attached to. The Islamophiles and Marxist media continue their indoctrination of the silent masses and of the youth.

America embraces gays, tolerates the burning of our flag, the desecration of tombs and cemeteries, of historical monuments, tolerates moronic athletes who talk about racism when they live in multi-million dollar homes and are raised by white people, tolerates leftist college students who are so brainwashed and scared of their own shadow, they need a safe space away from reality.

America is so tolerant that they give degrees to people who should have never been given admission to a college, socially promotes people based on the color of their skin, not necessarily on their achievement or merit because we have quotas.

America is so tolerant, it’s being invaded by outsiders who don’t want to become Americans; they want to destroy America. Americans open their homes, their hearts, and their pocketbooks and they put these invaders on welfare while their own veterans die waiting to be cared for in VA hospitals. Veterans live modestly on insufficient pensions while illegals receive larger paychecks the moment they set foot on our soil.

Americans are so tolerant that they turn a blind eye and deaf ears to the race baiting coming non-stop from this administration, to the murder of police, to the destructive paid rioting that has only one goal in mind, to replace our constitutional republic’s electoral process with the popular vote driven by mob rule.

Americans turn a blind eye to the invasion from our southern border, to the Reconquista sanctioned by La Raza who believes America is rightfully theirs.

America is so tolerant that we give nukes and billions in aid to countries that are sponsors of terrorism, to countries that hate Americans and wish us harm, to countries that kidnap our citizens. Americans protect the ungrateful Europeans who snub our culture and demonstrate a disdain, hatred, and anti-Americanism never before exhibited.

Americans are so tolerant that we allowed our public schools to become indoctrination farms into global communism with the help of Common Core, the Department of Education, and the vaunted collegiate academia. Their pupils are now among those who are pushing for “forward,” “hope and change,” “fundamental transformation,” “social justice,” impossible “equality,” and replacing our Constitutional Republic with a “democracy” ruled by anarchists. As such, the Electoral College, an important element of our republic, must be destroyed, no more checks and balances.

There is more hate, intolerance, disinformation, and lies coming from the progressive left than we can possibly quantify in a lifetime. Until we change the entire education system back to patriotic American values, citizenship, culture, borders, family, freedom of faith, and accurate American history, we are not going to win the war against the globalists.

Living in a Sci-Fi Reality?

Photo: Wikipedia

Are we already living in a sci-fi reality, the reality that imitates art of the 1993 movie, Demolition Man? In a celluloid 1996 Los Angeles criminals are running rampant over the city. The character of Sylvester Stallone, Sgt. John Spartan, is its only hope to instill some semblance of “normal life” in a utopian society he no longer recognizes.

Known by his moniker, “Demolition Man,” Spartan destroys buildings in an effort to catch criminals.  One such criminal is Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes) and his gang whose capture eventually puts the innocent Sgt. Spartan in jail for having gone into a building without his superiors’ orders in order to free 30 hostages. When the building explodes and collapses, the handiwork of Phoenix, who wired it with explosives, all innocents are killed.

Arrested for involuntary manslaughter, Sgt. Spartan is incarcerated in a cryo-prison that keeps inmates frozen in suspended animation. It is not the bizarre punishment that is so shocking but how society changes after a devastating earthquake merges the cities of San Diego, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara into a strange utopia, not unlike that dreamed by progressive liberals, a dystopia in which police officers have no idea how to deal with criminals, living in a cult-like, namby-pamby existence in which cursing or using certain “verboten” bad words is punished by robots located everywhere who issue tickets each time, punishing the offenders with fines of no salt, spices, food, and other life-enhancing pleasures that humans take for granted.

The fascist government controls everyone’s life to such a degree that they must be issued permits to reproduce and their sexual life is reduced to a virtual reality experience, without touching, without the “icky exchange of bodily fluids,” and with in-vitro fertilization.

While in cryo-stasis, Phoenix, now released by the corrupt Dr. Raymond Cocteau to kill Edgar Friendly, the underground leader of free people who are giving him fits with their existence, Phoenix is given computer-hacking skills and paramilitary training.

The problem is that now cars drive themselves and actual weapons are stored in a dusty museum, no longer used for defense where such weapons are forbidden and thus unnecessary as the fascist state controls everything except the small underground resistance called “the Scraps,” homeless people and citizens marginalized by the fascist society, periodically raiding the surface for food.

Life is tightly controlled by security cameras everywhere and nobody can escape the long-arm and all-Seeing Eye of the government. The plot has many one-liners and funny moments such as the existence of only restaurants approved by the government, Taco Bells, the only survivor of the “monopoly wars of the 20^th century,” and the police woman named Lenina (Sandra Bullock).  

Lenin would be so proud.

Eventually Cocteau, the fascist dictator, is killed; the utopian and tightly-controlled bizarre city is thrown into disarray and into an uncertain chaotic future.

 

 

Infecting a Nation for Politics and Money

“The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing.”
– Christopher Manes, Earth First!

“I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.”  – John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

Ebola Source: The Web

Should flights coming from West African nations be cancelled and our borders closed? According to Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the answer is “No, absolutely not.”  “When you start closing countries like that, there is a real danger of making things worse,… governments could fall if you isolate them.”

What kind of logic is that? How is it possible that blocking visas and the travel of people sick with Ebola and quarantining them in the Hot Zone is making things worse? Would that not be easier for the virus outbreak to be contained and allow the virus to burn itself out before it mutates?

Apparently the neighboring countries to Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria have good judgment and have made the decision to close their borders to and cancel incoming flights from the affected countries.

Should Americans care if governments might fall in West Africa where Ebola is raging out of control, when the safety of our own citizens is at stake? We used to be insulated somewhat by our geographical location but thanks to our government’s insane politics we now have Ebola cases and the enterovirus D68 infections among American children in almost all states of our union.

American children were made sick by the illegal alien children who were bureaucratically dispersed and placed in classrooms around the country.  These children did not speak English, were illiterate in their own native dialects, and lacked any knowledge of basic hygiene. In addition of lice, scabies, TB, and chicken pox, the list of infectious diseases they brought into our country is quite long.

The surge of illegal alien children has dropped, according to the Washington Times, from 10,000 per month in May and June to 3,100 in August, but the damage has already been done. (Stephen Dinan, Disease plagues illegal immigrants; lack of medications, basic hygiene blamed, The Washington Times, October 6, 2014)

At least five children have died in the U.S. with respiratory illnesses caused by the enterovirus D68 (EV-D68). The latest casualty is Eli Waller from New Jersey who died of the “polio-like illness.” Health officials “have no idea how he contracted the virus.” Michael Savage pointed out on his website that the County of Union New Jersey Department of Human Services in Elizabeth, New Jersey, accepted $1,100,766 in grants from HHS to receive shipments of unaccompanied illegal alien children.

Eli has died “to support Obama illegal-alien goals,” said Michael Savage on his website. He discussed on his show church charities and child services agencies that have received millions of dollars in grants to accept and care for unaccompanied illegal alien children infected with communicable diseases.

Dr. Savage blamed the spread of the “mysterious” virus which is no mystery to him at all, on this administration’s leftist policies of open borders. He reminded listeners that these progressives have blood on their hands. “They will infect a nation to buy another car, to buy another house, “and to push their progressive agenda.

Prof. Paul Ehrlich spelled the progressive depopulation agenda quite succinctly in The Population Bomb. “A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people…. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions.”

Markus Bergstrom, chief information officer of Startup Cities Institute in Guatemala, wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post, "Losing the Birth Lottery."  http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/losing-the-birth-lottery/2014/10/03/d1806338-4a69-11e4-a046-120a8a855cca_story.html

According to him, it is “borderism” and “racism” that are preventing the Mexicans south of the border to come and go as they please, borders are a nuisance . I wonder if Bergstrom heard of Sgt. Tahmooressi who is languishing in a Mexican jail for having accidentally crossed the border into Mexico.

A Mexican citizens and an American citizen from New Mexico are only separated by a birth certificate, having been born on the wrong side of the fence, he said. I don’t know what fence he is talking about because our southern border is wide open into the U.S., we even provide charter flights and buses to come here illegally, grants to care for them, medical care, welfare, Social Security cards, and many benefits paid for by the American taxpayers who had paid into the Social Security “trust fund” for decades. We also have the 14^th Amendment  with birthright citizenship that provides pregnant illegals with convenient “anchor babies.”

In Bergstrom’s opinion, we must address this geographical injustice and transform the United State into a European Union with open borders because the mass migration from poor countries to developed countries in Western Europe worked so well, Europe is not a basket case of financial bankruptcy and multicultural strife, violence, beheadings, and overall failure.

Bergstrom says, “… borderism and racism are ultimately questions of ethics. Inheriting the wrong genes is no longer punishable by law, but inheriting the wrong citizenship is. Borderism is thus a sibling of racism as it subjects our rights to the lottery of life. While many opportunities in life are unequally distributed, our legal rights must always be universal.”

There you have it, progressivism on parade. We are all global citizens now and borders and sovereignty are a thing of the past.

©Ileana Johnson 2014

 

 

 

 

Liberals and Progressives, Telling Other People How to Live Their Lives

Liberals and progressives (LPs) like to control and micromanage other people’s lives. They consider themselves the ultimate arbiter of every facet of our existence. You could say they are the proverbial busy-bodies. You can ignore the busy-body down the block. But, if you ignore liberals and progressives who have the power of the HOA, of violent protests, of boycotts, of the law, of the purse, and of the police behind them, you do so at your own peril.

LPs may be a minority of the population but they have their tentacles deeply embedded into the majority and into our national psyche, driving the message and the conversation and squashing dissent with labels of bigotry, racism, xenophobia, and islamophobia.

Americans are trained to comply peacefully, follow and respect law and order, no matter how badly conceived a law may be. After all, 435 chosen ones have voted and decided and 316 million subjects must obey.

The LP unholy alliance takes over our children at an early age in pre-school, telling them how to think, what to think, what to believe in, whom to recognize as ultimate authority, feeding them a manufactured history that would shame them into hating who they are instead of being proud of their heritage.

The LP alliance teaches our children intolerance of divergent opinions, racism, inappropriate sexuality, worship of primitive cultures, and staunch divisiveness in the stated propagandizing pursuit of equality, social justice, and fundamental transformation into an environmental utopia ruled by Mother Earth.

The LPs manipulate the main stream media and force upon the majority the perverted messages from the drug culture of Hollywood, the narcissistic lot who think of themselves as heroes and instant experts because they can act on stage or memorize lines on celluloid.   

The LPs dilute our Christian faith, the importance of family, tamper with our definition of marriage, and are responsible for the death of millions of innocent unborn children who want to live but are slaughtered through legal abortion.

The LPs control our medical care, our doctors, our hospitals, whether we are treated or not.  If we are good little Americans, pliant to their wishes, and cough up as much of our wealth as possible, they may let us be.

The LPs tell us what size houses we can build, where we can build them, how many stories tall they must be, and how densely populated the area.

LPs dictate what cars we can drive, how fast we can drive, and what kind of fuel we can use. LPs have already made plans to replace as many drivers with riders on light rail and on buses, preferably walkers and bikers. Corridors are being built and allotted to bus use only. Connecticut is a case in point.

LPs control what lands we can own, which ones we must give up to the federal government for re-wilding, where we can go camping, fishing, boating, and for recreation. There are specific areas for such activities, with very strict rules and regulations.

LPs instruct us where we can farm, what to farm, what we can feed our cattle, where we can graze our cattle, and how we can mitigate the impact the cow flatulence has on the levels of methane gas in the atmosphere.

The LPs know better what kind of energy we should use, no matter what the cost to us, which land must be used for solar power generation and wind power generation, no matter how many bird species are fried or killed, or no matter how many cattle ranchers or humans are displaced and hurt in the process.

LPs calculate how much water farmers are allowed to get from aquifers, rivers, and lakes. Wildlife always has priority over human life. A delta smelt, a desert tortoise, or a snowy owl have preference over the lives of millions of humans.

LPs decide through taxation how much money we should keep from accumulated wealth or earned income. It is unfair to the unsuccessful and the welfare-minded to have less money and wealth than the hard-working and the successful do. Social justice must prevent that from ever happening. Why should a doctor make more money than a grocery store clerk? Could it be that doctors study for 12 years to train in their profession?

LPs like to tell us what to eat, how much to eat, how much sugar, salt, and protein from meat. After all, a meat diet is bad for our health and cow flatulence contributes to global warming. Vegans live better and healthier lives, we are told by various “studies.” We are also informed that we grow more than enough vegetables on this planet to feed 7 billion humans. Do we?

LP billionaires now control the education of our children through Common Core, a bewildering way of thinking that will turn us back a few decades until the rest of the third world can catch up with us and we become good little equal global citizens, living in equal dumbed-down miserable existence.

LPs control politics, politicians, judges, the Supremes, and everyone else in between who like to have a life-long cushy job with no accountability to those little information voters who elected them time and time again.

Pretty drama queens from unknown districts relish in abusive power to make disastrous policies for 316 million Americans. Minions pay homage to the beauty that got them through school and through an election to such a powerful position in the world. They can’t help but wonder - how stupid are these people who put me here? Could they not see right through my ignorant background? Did they not know that I was a C and D student and have not learned much in school? But I’m on top of the world now and I can do whatever I want, nobody can stop me because I am an unstoppable politician for life.

The LPs arbitrate our water supply, pick our energy policy, control our food prices, make decisions about our roads, and select our agricultural production through subsidies. They are the feudal lords who told their subjects they could not hunt the animals in the forest because they belonged to the lord of the manor.

The LPs control our immigration policy, who comes into our country illegally, how many benefits they get immediately upon setting foot on American soil, free medical care, free college tuition, and other rewards not available to American citizens.

LPs determine amnesty and the ultimate fate, survival or demise, of our culture. They will be responsible for our country’s morphing into a regional fiefdom of the global elites.

 

 

Free Cheese in a Socialist Mousetrap

“There is always free cheese in a mousetrap.” – Retired Marine Colonel Martino

Public Citizen.org, self-described as “advocates for a healthier and more equitable world,” sent a fundraising letter to Democrat voters, claiming that “millionaires who run the largest corporations on Earth want to slash the social insurance programs the rest of us rely on.” By slashing, they are referring to the logical proposal to increase eligibility age for Medicare, to correlate Medicare to income, and to modernize/privatize it.

Who are these “mega-corporations” that apparently want to destroy our healthcare? Public Citizen points out that CEOs of AT&T, Boeing, Dow Chemical, Exxon, Mobil, General Electric, JPMorgan, and Wal-Mart have no idea “what it’s like to worry if you can retire with dignity and security.”

So far, class division and envy rhetoric, blaming the “evil” rich for the world’s problems and social injustice, has worked for progressives because they appeal to the lowest information voters, people who watch “reality” television and take their news information from comedians on the alphabet soup channels, the media machine of the Democrat Party.

It is not the CEOs who have destroyed the middle class and the opportunity to succeed in America, it is the race baiters, politicians, and the community organizers who keep the low information voters misinformed and beholden to their supposed saviors, the very people who control them and benefit from their misfortunes.

Public Citizen, a progressive organization for the “defense of democracy from corporate greed” and for social justice, with specialists in Community Organizing, lobbyists, environmentalism, and attorneys is “fighting not only to preserve Medicare, but to improve and expand it into the universal, single-payer health insurance system our nation needs to make the ideal of health care as a human right the reality for every American.”

Somebody needs to tell low information Democrats that medical care is not a human right, it is a service, provided by medical professionals who expect to be paid for their service, expertise, and the many years they’ve spent in medical school studying diligently for exams, writing papers, dissecting, doing 36-hour rotations at hospitals for free, paying high tuition fees, and buying high-priced specialty books. These medical professionals have loans to repay, families to feed, bills to pay, office overhead costs, malpractice insurance (due to the extremely litigious society that we live in), and employees who must be paid for their work as well.

Somebody should also tell uninformed Democrats that Medicare was not designed as a universal, single-payer health insurance system and that it is President Obama who is stripping Medicare of $719 billion over the next ten years in order to fund his unaffordable Affordable Care Act. Additionally, Americans have not asked for a single-payer, national socialized health care system but they got it, it is the law; even if ACA is defunded completely, all Americans must still pay the tax next year if they do not have proof of insurance.

Public Citizen claims that “an immoral (and ineffective) for-profit health insurance regime” dominates in our country. The medical system has its problems and is in need of tort reform and insurance portability across state lines, but it is the best health care system in the world, everyone who needs serious medical care comes to the United States for surgery. It is not an immoral system, anybody who comes to an emergency room is treated, and nobody is refused care.

On the contrary, millions of illegal immigrants take advantage of our generous health care system and overuse emergency rooms as their private doctors and as their OBGYNs, forcing taxpayers to foot the bills for the delivery of anchor babies and the care of their mothers while Americans buy insurance for their families. Americans, who cannot afford premiums because they fall below the poverty line, receive medical treatment through Medicaid.

“The private, for-profit health insurance establishment” has been able to offer free medical care to all people who could not afford to pay but needed care. Nobody died unnecessarily because they were turned away as the Public Citizen fundraising letter implies.

Unfortunately, with the new Obamacare, rationing will become the norm and people will be turned down for treatment based on their age and utility to society, they will become “units.” There is a 15-member death panel written into Obamacare. We will find out soon enough when the unfortunately-named Affordable Care Act starts enrolling people on October 1, 2013.

Public Citizen is mobilizing the “public and allies in Congress to block any cuts to Medicare.”

Pushing a “national single-payer system,” they are joined by “Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. John Conyers, the congressional champions of single-payer legislation.”

The letter concludes, “We are supporting state efforts to adopt a single-payer system in the framework of the Affordable Care Act.” The truth is that many states are pushing back and do not wish to have a single-payer system because it is unworkable and they lack the funds to do so.

Unions want Obamacare repealed or defunded because their members wish to keep their current Cadillac health insurance plans and their doctors, as promised by the President. Congress, who wrote the bill, does not want Obamacare for themselves and their staffers. They have strategized and manipulated behind closed doors until the President gave them a special status and a 75% subsidy towards the annual premium.   

Giving potential donors misguided statistics on the status of our healthcare, Public Citizen’s President ends his message of gloom and doom with the chilling “onward.” “Onward” is an interesting variant to “forward,” euphemisms recognizable to me as socialist slogans.

Education Gone Berserk

During my 30 years of teaching, I have experienced plenty of irrational teaching methods and behaviors coming from liberal teachers and administrators bent on controlling every move that students or faculty members made.

Every year administrators added extra pages to the official code of conduct. These were deliberate steps to restrict freedom and to punish real or potential bad behaviors. Needless to say, lawyers were busy defending ridiculous claims and actions that a person with common sense would have known to avoid or ignore. But liberals like to micromanage everything and everybody.

It was refreshing to see that a judge had the common sense to throw out Mayor Bloomberg’s ridiculous ban on large sodas. For every victory for common sense, more irrational progressive cases emerge.

A grade school in Michigan banned plastic soldiers decorating cupcakes. A seven year old was punished for biting his pop tart in the shape of a gun. I suppose there will be a ban on wooden toy guns next. Boys will no longer be able to play Cowboys and Indians. On second thought, the game may have been outlawed already as racist and insulting to Indians.

But it’s perfectly fine to mock the Bible by replaying the Genesis with “Adam and Steve” in South Hadley, Massachusetts at Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School (PVPA), “A public school dedicated to academic and artistic excellence," grades 7-12. http://www.pvpa.org/

As Caitlin Canty was quoted, “It’d be good for business, why not; maybe they’ll have a full audience. I really don’t see why it could be a problem and who would be offended. I’m surprised around here too, such a strong pretty liberal leaning community.”

The play, touted as a comedy, “The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told,” is insulting to millions of Christians who do not like their religion disrespected.  It is a hateful school play mocking the Bible and Christianity with blatant homosexual themes. http://www.wwlp.com/dpp/news/local/hampden/High-school-preforms-controversial-play

Why can’t schools provide reading, writing, and mathematics instead of engaging in propaganda and pandering to various liberal agendas? It is shameful to use children as pawns to destroy the fabric of our society and its traditions.

There are so many examples of micromanaging and driving progressive agendas in schools.

-         Hugging and hand holding are banned in some schools.

-         Teachers are banned to grade papers with red ink because it stigmatizes those who do not study for tests. Red is too “confrontational” in some countries.

-         Dodge ball is too dangerous and aggressive.

-         Backpacks are apparently not safe in some Michigan classrooms.

-         Bake sales are too dangerous, the sweets may have been baked in unsanitary conditions and have no nutritional value.

-         Best friends make others feel uncomfortable and excluded.

-         Milk will be pushed out as “high in sugar, high in fat, high in protein, harmful to bone health,” if a vegan and physician group has its way.

-         Words like dinosaur, poverty, birthdays, Halloween, dancing, will be phased out because they “might elicit unpleasant emotions” in some children.

-         Competitive games during recess and winning stir emotions of worthlessness in students and should be banned.

-         Balls are banned in some schools because they may cause concussions when students fall.

-         Anything having to do with Christmas is already banned in many schools. We now have the holiday tree. We do not want to offend people of other religions who complain vociferously with the help of very deep-pocketed lobbies. I wonder why they did not stay in their countries if American traditions are so offensive. Why migrate to this country and expect the hosts to change their way of life in order to suit the guests’ traditions?

According to the Portland Tribune, one principal in Portland argued that a sandwich has “broader implications about race.” In a lesson plan last year, Verenice Gutierrez from Harvey Scott K-8 school explained that “the word sandwich is a subtle form of racism in language.” A peanut butter and jelly sandwich could be racist and socially unjust.

“What about Somali or Hispanic students, who might not eat sandwiches?” Gutierrez said, according to the Tribune. “Another way would be to say: ‘Americans eat peanut butter and jelly, do you have anything like that?’ Let them tell you. Maybe they eat torta. Or pita.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/is-peanut-butter-and-jelly-racist_n_1874905.html

It is absurd to consider a sandwich racist but schools across the nation are training teachers to indoctrinate students into “white privilege” social injustice, using racially-charged educational initiatives. Are the rest of us racists for disagreeing with progressives? It is shameful for any teacher to use propaganda methods to teach our children reverse racism.

Pacific Educational Group developed the “Courageous Conversations” program adopted in Portland to help minority students through initiatives that address educational disparities “intentionally, explicitly, and comprehensively,” through a “culturally proficient curriculum.” http://www.pacificeducationalgroup.com/pages/about

During my teaching career I have never encountered or used a “culturally proficient curriculum.” Based on evidence, I can assume the “culturally proficient curriculum” to be based on the failed multi-culturalism of Western Europe. Apparently there is a national association of multicultural education. A quick search revealed one such class in which teachers were told to “make a list of cultural groups in their classroom or school to include gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, exceptionalities, language, country of origin, and many more.” I can only imagine the caliber of instruction in mathematics and science, based on someone’s sexual orientation, gender, religion, and ethnicity.

How about teaching students how to think logically, how to read and write well, teach them grammar, how to spell, how to do math and percentages without the help of a calculator?

Proficiency in education should be based on a curriculum that emphasizes American exceptionalism, non-revisionist history, personal merit, performance, interest, and achievement. Howard Gardner of Harvard wrote his theory of “multiple intelligences” (visual, spatial, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, linguistic, naturalistic, musical, logical-mathematical) as a guide to help learners understand how to use their dominant method of learning to their advantage because we are all born with strengths and weaknesses.

There is no race or “racial disparities” in education except those manufactured by educators with an agenda. We have left racial strife behind long time ago; there is no need to revisit it because everybody in America has the opportunity to excel and succeed if they have a burning desire to learn and are willing to work hard.

It is not surprising that more and more parents turn to home-schooling and private schools of their choice. As Rand Paul said in a recent speech, the federal government could save a lot of money ($70 billion a year) by closing the Department of Education and returning education spending and decisions to the states. (Rand Paul, CPAC speech, March 13, 2013)

Shaping America into Progressivism

Teaching or substituting in America of the early 1980s was not easy. As a Superintendent of Education had told me, they “did not just take anybody off the street. You had to be highly qualified.” That did not necessarily mean well versed in a subject matter. You had to belong to the “rarefied” group of licensed teachers.

I was interested in Latin and he had told me that he did not need Latin teachers because he had a person from Latin America who taught Spanish. As I looked at him, I was thinking of the Vice-President who told a crowd in Latin America that, had he paid more attention in his Latin class, he would have been able to speak to his audience in their native language.

The newly formed (1979) Department of Education had instituted stringent rules and regulations that school districts had to follow in order to receive federal funding and state certification. The National Education Association welcomed all dues-paying teachers, eager to indoctrinate them into the master educational plan.

Teaching elementary, middle, and high school required jumping through certification bureaucratic hoops that only the College of Education graduates could easily meet. It was not important if teachers performed well in the classroom, on the National Teacher Exam, or knew their subject area of expertise - they had to be licensed.

Many mediocre students eked out a diploma after four years of easy courses and became distributors of revisionist knowledge and shapers of generations of American students. As they gained tenure, no matter how inadequate their teaching, school districts could not get rid of them. The NEA vehemently defended their rights to a life-long career.

Many former coaches and physical education teachers went back to school for Masters Degrees in School Administration and became principals and superintendents, cheerleaders and supporters of their former colleagues and peers. If they played by the Department of Education rules, the rewards were plenty. Objective teachers who followed their conscience were marginalized as not being “team players.” Non-Education graduates could teach college with a Master’s Degree but not in the public schools. Membership in the club had its rewards and prevented better teachers from entering the system.

Liberals took control of education and imposed political correctness, which silenced conservatives and any possible opposition lest they be labeled racists and anti-children.

The curriculum changed from year to year, becoming more secularized and socialist, pushing religion completely out of the public schools. Prayer at football games, singing the national anthem, and the recitation of the pledge of allegiance to our country were scorned. Atheists objected to traditions that made this country great but interfered with their agenda. Being Green, the worship of Gaia, Mother Earth, and activist environmentalism became the new religion.

Teaching methodologies changed yearly, according to the latest fashion from teacher colleges in New York, Boston, California, like a new dress, more outrageous and less conducive to learning but easy on testing and highly experimental. The curriculum became more “socially just.” Standards were so relaxed that some students graduated who could not read or write on an elementary level. Education was dumbed down to include even the laziest students, test results worsened, dropouts increased, while knowledge retention declined.

Multilingual education and multiculturalism were forced upon schools in order to accommodate the burgeoning illegal immigrant student population.

A wave of anti-Americanism dominated the lectures of liberals. Everything that America did in its history or stood for became evil and open to negative interpretation. Conservative teachers were silenced by the threat of job loss. Performance boards ignored them but awarded constant praise and “I love myself” certificates to mediocre teachers who played by the progressive rule.

When expressing honest opinions, conservative students were intimidated and ridiculed by socialist activist teachers. Some students received lower grades when their opinions clashed with the teacher’s “America is evil” platform. Certain assignments crossed the line of objectivism and had nothing to do with the subject at hand but few parents paid attention or were vigilant enough.

I was shocked when the entire student body was required to attend two-hour indoctrination into the peaceful religion of Islam, presented by a Palestinian imam. A rapt audience of innocent and ignorant high school students was told how respected and cherished Muslim women were. The faculty did not protest but sat stony faced although they all knew the lack of rights and worth of Muslim women. Nobody asked questions about the hangings, stonings, decapitations, and cutting limbs of women under Islam. The religious presentation had been organized by the principal, the same person who said repeatedly that there is a separation of church and state, and refused to allow students to wear crosses to school because it might make students uncomfortable who did not believe in God.

Instead of teaching students that in 235 years of exceptionalism, America rose to become the world’s greatest power and revered society, an AP English teacher in Montgomery County, MD was asking students to explain how “Thoreau’s extolling the virtues of individualism and self-efficiency can jeopardize the community.” They were talking about community in Marxist parlance, as in “communis,” Latin for “shared.”

We were not allowed to be individuals in the totalitarian regime I lived under for 20 years. We shared a lot of misery, poverty, and despair under communism because self-reliance and rugged individualism were discouraged. Instead, we were told to be sheep under a benevolent government with omnipotent, god-like powers. As Marx said, “A people without a heritage are easily persuaded.”

Our children are taught that private property, the lynchpin of liberty, is bad. Thomas Jefferson began the Declaration of Independence with the words, “the pursuit of life, liberty, and property.”

Few American students pay attention to what Thomas Jefferson wrote anymore. Distributing condoms to elementary school children and setting up nurseries in high schools across the country for illegitimate babies take precedence over serious education.

American children have been brainwashed to reject the fundamental values of this country and of civilization. The Pew Research Center showed that more Americans age 18 to 29 have a favorable view of socialism over capitalism, 49 percent positive for socialism and 46 percent positive of capitalism. (December 2011)

The United Nation’s 150-page “World Happiness Report” promotes European socialism as the path to well-being. Fabian socialism must be imposed on the entire world through social and environmental justice. It is no coincidence that Maryland was the first state in the U.S. to pass The No Child Left Inside Act, forcing environmental literacy as a condition of graduation from high school. The reading and math test scores for some areas in Maryland are pathetic yet students must be environmentally literate in order to protect Mother Earth from the destructive economic activities of man. The education system is clearly pushing the religion of Gaia to the detriment of traditional education.

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution lists the items over which Congress has the power to legislate and education is not one of them, neither can education be logically included under the commerce clause. It would be a stretch to consider the Department of Education constitutional. President Carter signed the DOE into law on October 17, 1979 and it began operating on May 16, 1980. President Reagan tried unsuccessfully to dismantle it.

Title 1 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 authorizing $1 billion annually to upgrade schools attended by students of low-income families has grown to $19 in 2010. No Child Left Behind is part of Title 1, an attempt to bring all students to proficiency level in math and reading by 2014. “More than half the states have asked the U.S. Department of Education for a waiver from No Child Left Behind.” The Obama’s administration will grant the waivers, ten years after President Bush signed the NCLB law, if those states adopt a new set of requirements established by President Obama, Common Core State Standards, a nationalized k-12 program of instruction. Title 1 funding would be tied to the Common Core. The “Race to the Top” grants in 2009 already emphasized “college and career ready” style of teaching and learning. Common Core national standards and tests require states to “surrender control of their classroom” to the federal government. (Heritage Foundation)

The federal government has spent $7 billion a year on Head Start, a program created by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 to serve almost a million low-income children across the country.  Taxpayers have spent $168 billion since its inception yet the National Head Start Impact Study released by the Department of Health and Human Services in January 2010 showed that three and four year olds who were followed into first grade were not impacted positively at all on cognitive skills when compared to those children who did not participate in Head Start.

Congress mandated in 2006 another study of Head Start participants after third grade. Have their cognitive skills perhaps improved then? Health and Human Services concluded the study in 2008 but has not released the study results, four years later. Senators Tom Coburn, Mike Enzi, Lamar Alexander, Richard Burr, and John McCain have asked HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to release the results of the study. (Lindsey Burke)

It is safe to say that the existence of the U.S. Department of Education has had no positive effect on American education in spite of its $70 billion a year budget and its extensive bureaucracy.

Parents disenchanted with public education have proliferated home schooling and charter schools in spite of the vociferous protests of public school teachers, administrators, and NEA. 

The worthless Bachelor of Arts has become a piece of paper necessary to get an easy job. Students are disappointed when the six-figure salary job promised by their college advisor does not materialize, after having spent $7,000 per year in a public college on tuition alone.

After taking easy courses and the bare minimum of work, often times hiring other students to write papers for them or do their work, the B.A. degree is not worth the paper it is printed on. Employers request a transcript to verify graduation, but grades and courses taken are rarely scrutinized. Perhaps the students show promise in the perseverance department as potential on-the-job learners.

According to Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute, eight million Pell Grants were awarded in 2010, totaling more than $32 billion. New loans of $125 billion were issued by the federal government in the same year.

The sad reality is that college graduates are experiencing 25 percent unemployment in the Obama administration that promised them “hope and change.” The hope is gone, there are no jobs in sight, and there is little change left in their pockets when college loans come due.