America Fundamentally Transformed

Photo: Ileana Johnson

In the spring of 2007 I was teaching a small class of non-traditional students, some as young as eighteen and some older than I was. It was an interesting mixture of blacks, whites, Hispanics, civilians and military who had jobs during the day and took classes at night to finish their college degrees. They were not the pampered and entitled snowflakes of today; they were hard-working Americans from all walks of life, some receiving Pell grants and some on military scholarships.

We always had interesting discussions as most brought their experience to class to contribute to our economic lessons. A few detracted from it with their unruly and disrespectful behavior. It was a bit too late to teach social manners to the two young black women who always arrived late, answered their phones in the classroom, and left often for bathroom breaks but returned with sodas, hamburgers, and fries from the nearby bowling alley.

Everyone was hungry, most students did not get a chance to get supper but some were patient enough to wait for the large break between the three-hour long classes before they bought food.

The two women, who wanted an A just by showing up for class, asked provocative questions such as, why does our textbook separate everybody by groups, age, disability, education, race, when giving economic statistics? Can we all not be just Americans, men and women? The fact that most textbooks are written by liberal college professors and are chosen as part of the curriculum by more liberal college professors and administrators did not dawn on them.

The “maverick” candidate Obama with his “beautiful family” and what he could do for our country and the black community economically was often the talk during breaks. One young man was especially excited as he was campaigning for him around the state.

My traditional college students during the day would often miss classes or arrive late with starry eyes from campaign rallies in support of this “transformational” candidate who would revolutionize America and give everyone free housing, health, food, and college. The excitement was so palpable, you could package it in gold tin foil with a blue ribbon. A few students even endangered their lives by standing in the middle of busy intersections holding signs in support of the unknown Chicagoan’s candidacy.

Schools staffed with Democrats to the rafters organized trips two hours away to hear candidate Obama who, as president of the largest economy on earth at the time, would “fundamentally transform” America into the socialist paradise of his anti-American and racist ideology. He was going to be a uniter and make everything that ailed this country better. At least that’s what everyone thought.

A local radio shock jock was asking listeners who they will vote for President in November. One caller said he would choose the unknown half-black candidate Obama because, “he would screw up things so badly, nobody would ever elect another socialist to office.” He was wrong on the election part. Obama was elected twice and more socialists and communists are elected to office today.

Eleven years later, we are divided more than ever along ideological and racial lines. The economy is improving thanks to the leadership of President Trump who is presiding over a 4.2% GDP growth unlike his predecessor who was busy telling us that a weak economy, less than 2% growth, was the new norm. President Trump is making good on the many promises candidate Trump has made to make America great again, his campaign slogan.

The Democrat side is busy telling us that America was never great. I wonder why everybody is risking life and limb to come to America if it is such a bad, racist, and intolerant place to be.

The entire country is in a social and political ailment. Communists, socialists, and anarchists are slowly taking over the country. Washington is a political Swamp nobody can possibly ever drain. People not qualified to answer a simple history or geopolitical question are elected to Democrat office by Democrat voters equally ignorant, lacking basic information, civics, and history knowledge, and who often do not speak English and vote legally and illegally.

The education of our children that used to be the envy of the world has taken an intolerant Marxist tone. Violent fascist and racist organizations like ANTIFA and BLM have found nests on campuses around the country, formed as their perceived need to enforce social justice. Their anger that the Democrat candidate Hillary lost the election is endless and incurable.

The media is bashing President Trump non-stop, vilifying him, his family, and everything he does. A man who has given up so much to do what is right for our country has become public enemy number one for all Democrat voters who seem to have lost their minds, mired in pure hate and insanity.

Hollywood college dropouts and ball players have joined in the fray of anti-Americanism. They use their microphones afforded by successful roles in movies which have suddenly made them experts, telling us how to live and how to become globalists by giving up our language, borders, and culture to invading hordes of economic refugees from third world countries.

The then transformational candidate Barack Hussein Obama, who promised to heal all the wounds and right all the wrongs, give his supporters free food, education, health, housing, cars, has turned our country into such an anti-American and welfare-centered direction that it is uncertain right now that we would ever be able to recover.

What is good has become bad, evil has become good, and moral values have been replaced by moral relativism, decadence, and filth. America continues to be fundamentally transformed from the shadows.

 

 

Behavior as a Communist School Subject

My second grade class

I found a photograph of my second grade classroom with students in dark uniforms, mostly devoid of smiles, with sad and serious faces.  It is a depressing moment in time that speaks volumes of the strict disciplinarian code enforced in communist schools.

Children had to stand when called upon to speak, or when asked a question. If they took notes, hands were busy writing. When asked to pay attention to the teacher, they had to keep their hands behind their backs in a very uncomfortable, back-numbing position, leaning against the wooden bench behind. If anybody entered the classroom, the entire student body had to stand and greet them according to rank. The word ‘comrade’ teacher or professor, followed by name, was required to be used at all times.

Modesty and protection of the honor of the classroom, of the school, of the communist party had to be a very important goal of learning. Nobody was allowed to use hateful and insulting language, to exhibit nationalism, superstition, religiousness, or mysticism. If anybody failed in the subject of school discipline, the entire student body was to rebuke that student and take a stance against the offender. Parents were called at school, reprimanded, and embarrassed in front of all the other parents present as inadequate members of the socialist society.

A student’s duty was to come prepared to school every day to answer any questions on that day’s subjects. They were to present, when asked, their Student I.D. Book which contained their entire school history, grades on various subjects, tests, and whether they passed a subject, failed a subject, and what grade they received. This Student I.D. Book (“Carnet de Elev” in Romanian), the size of a passport, had to be presented upon request to any teacher, professor, teacher of behavior (“diriginte”), school director, parent, guardian, and after each notation made inside by school officials. The Student I.D. Book had to be kept clean.

Students had to enter the school quietly, in single file, wearing their uniforms, their matriculation numbers on their sleeves, on hats, and on their chests, hair combed, braided, tied with a white ribbon, wearing black or brown shoes, and white knee highs or heavy-gauge cotton panty hose. No stockings, makeup, shaving, or jewelry were allowed. Each pupil had to occupy their seat immediately and remain seated in silence until the teacher arrived.

Outside and inside the classroom bad and insulting language was forbidden as it was considered hate speech. Students were encouraged to be honest, fair, and courageous in public, in line with the communist party platform. They were to obey traffic signs, respect the elderly, those younger, the handicapped, and lend a hand when asked.

Students were not allowed to attend shows, marches, and public rallies that were not age-appropriate or sanctioned by the school or by the communist party. To ask or answer questions, each student had to raise a hand first; they could not speak unless told to do so.

They were expected to help with domestic chores and care for younger brothers and sisters. A school inspector or teacher would occasionally visit each student’s home to check on their behavior and the family’s habits.

Nobody was allowed to leave the classroom without the teacher’s approval, not even for a bathroom break. During a 4-6 hour school day, two breaks were given, a 10-minute break and a 20-minute break, and no lunch was provided. No students were ever bussed, everyone walked to school alone or in a group of other students.

If too many unexcused absences were recorded, a student was made to repeat the school year. If a student failed a class, he/she also had to repeat the year. If anybody in high school became pregnant, which was quite rare and morally frowned upon, the girl and the father were expelled and forced to finish their education during night school, separate from the more rigorous day schools. There was no daycare provided for out-of-wedlock student moms.

My Student I.D. Book had been lost long time ago, having left it behind when I came to the United States. But I still have my diplomas with the picture of a little girl with pig tails tied with white bows, innocently smiling. It was a time when we believed that everyone on the planet lived the same way we did.

Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2015

Note

Fortunately, Andreea Lupsor, a young Romanian writer for Historia.ro, found a high school Student I.D. Book from “Liceul Mihai Viteazu” stamped with the school year 1964-1965.

 

Communist child rearing

My earliest and happiest childhood memories take me to my grandparents country house in the summer. I spent the first seven years of my life with my maternal grandparents. When I started first grade, I only saw them in the summer. They were my de facto mom and dad. My parents would come visit me on Sundays. I always felt abandoned each time they left. There was a deep sorrow rooted within my soul that I could not shake until I was fifteen years old. Grandparents had to step in and help raise a child until first grade as there was no such thing as day care or baby sitter under communism. People had to fend for themselves the best way they could. Some children were locked in by their mothers who had to go grocery shopping, others were tended by older siblings. I often wondered what would have happened to me if the apartment caught fire and I could not escape since I was locked in and our apartment was on the fifth floor of our building, with no fire escape? The locks were so primitive that only a key could open the door from the inside or from the outside. It was never customary to see mothers carry their babies with them shopping or on vacation. Chidren were always left home with other relatives. Newborns were never shown to the world for months for fear that they may get sick or get the "evil eye." Superstitious moms believed that someone with blue or green eyes could stare at their babies and cast a spell of ill fortune on the child which may result in death. Many children were hurt from lack of proper supervision, burns, scaldings, falls, cuts, electrocutions, and bruises. There was some weak accountability but, generally, a person's life was worth very little. I was an only child and mom did not have many choices. People who had lots of children usually left them with the eldest child who served as a surrogate parent. There was no law frowning on such practices nor child protective services who really cared about the welfare of children in general. Only when the population was not multiplying fast enough, did the communist party step in and offered stipends to mothers - a form of welfare to stay home and have babies. The more babies, the higher the stipend. Once a mom passed six children, she was considered hero of the communist regime and given an actual medal with lots of fanfare to make sure other women emulated her fecundity role. Since there was no birth control and no possibility of any legal abortion, women would have back alley abortions and often die of severe bleeding or septic infections. Those who gave birth and could not afford to literally feed their children, the government would step in and raise the child in the many orphanages that were designed to raise and educate the dictator's civilian army. Ironically, such a baby, raised to become a civilian army machine, given up by a woman who had been raped, eventually became part of the firing squad who executed the dictator Ceausescu and his wife Elena. Nobody knows which of the soldiers had the real bullets, but it is ironic, that one of his henchmen may have been his ultimate demise, a victim of its own draconian birth policies. I lost a dear friend to a self-induced abortion. Laila was an architecture student and could not afford to feed another human being but did not want to give the baby away. She was 21 years old when she died of septic infection. Hospitals were forbidden to give medical help to anyone who had life and death injuries from botched abortions.
Women who chose to have babies and worked were rewarded by being given weeks and months of maternity leave, before and after a baby was born. For the first three years of a baby's life, each mother had generous full paid leave if a baby was ill. Some women took advantage of the system and pretended that their babies were sick in order to stay home and receive full pay. There was a cottage industry of dishonest pediatricians who wrote and sold excuses to justify the mothers' absence from work. It was a disgrace and it crated a class of cheaters who were a drain on the rest of society.
Country people had more children because they needed help in the fields. They had an easier life since they raised their own food and did not have to wait for the government handouts or meager salaries.
The government did not fuss much over the welfare of children except in the initial stages of adoption by childless couples. The process of adoption was quite arduous but the regime lost interest shortly after a baby was placed and a few visits were made to the new home. Abuse or even cases of murder by adoptive parents were seldom investigated thoroughly, the guilty seldom went to jail, or actually served harsh sentences. Life in general was expendable. People were more likely to do hard time for their political views or sexual orientation than for taking an innocent life. Investigations were quite commonly botched, files misplaced, evidence lost, or never collected in the first place. This made the job of a judge quite impossible. Not that they were that honest to begin with, they were stooges for the government and thus bought and bribed.
When a child made it to the first grade, life had not been that easy. Parents managed to scrounge enough money to buy supplies for school and the government provided the textbooks and free communist indoctrination. Everything taught was by rote memorization since labs were too expensive to provide experiments for various chemistry, biology, or physics classes and visuals or films did not exist. Concepts were illustrated on paper, if you understood it fine, if not, too bad. Students did not have calculators, they were provided with an abacus in first grade. All mathematical calculations had to be done with pen and paper.
Children were spanked by their parents and the law allowed teachers and administrators to spank as well. There was no breakfast or lunch at school. The daily schedule ran for elementary kids from 7 a.m. - 12 p.m. and for high schoolers from 1-6 p.m. There were no school buses and kids had to learn to walk to school in groups without parental supervision. Parents brought them to school every day the first week, after that, they were on their own. There were no kidnappings since nobody wanted the responsibility of feeding and housing another human being when they could barely afford to feed themselves. I remember walking past a cemetery while in high school. It was very unsettling returning home in the dark and letting the imagination run wild while passing by the cemetery. Needless to say, I never walked home, I ran. Few people owned cars and if they did, gasoline was so expensive, $9-10/gallon, that cars were kept mostly in the garage as a crown jewel. Owners would wash and polish them with so much love and care every weekend. Once a month, or every so many months, the car was driven a few short miles to grandma's house or to the nearest park for a picnick with "mititei" (a type of local sausage) and beer. Children were seldom invited on such outings. If the family could afford to dine in a restaurant once a year (a real luxury), children were again not invited. Baptisms, weddings, and burials were different, the children became the central part. Their youthful presence and joy inspired hope.
The government decreed that each child had to be vaccinated in school and the school nurse implemented this mandate with the same needles and syringes that were boiled every morning. Kids succumbed to hepatitis and childhood diseases that were preventable but untreated due to lack of medication, poor sterilization, or doctor care. Doctors and hospital visits were free but actually getting treatment was a different story. Everything was so rationed that the doctor/patient ratio was quite high. One doctor had to treat thousands and thousands of patients. There were not enough hours in the day to see everyone who needed immediate attention. I was one child of many who fell through the cracks and suffered needlessly. My mild childhood scoliosis was treated with three months of exercise instead of an expensive corset which the government refused to approve. To this day I have constant back pain.
By contrast, the children of communist party elite had the best schools, best food, free vacations paid by the regime, best medical care, drugs that were not available to the rest of us, day care, kindergartens, automatic admission to college, and assured visas to study or visit abroad. Their parents bought favors with hard currency, usually U.S. dollars, confiscated from political dissidents or by selling assets or art objects from the patrimony of the country. Every communist member who was part of the regime was above the law and lived a life of luxury, deception, and theft - the ultimate example of redistribution of wealth.