The journey to our dystopian present was born with the publishing of the Manifesto of the Communist Party in 1848. In opposition to America’s founding principles, its core principles and historical analysis now find expression nearly everywhere. Black Lives Matter, critical race theory, common core, The Squad, members of the Supreme Court, public employee unions — it’s overwhelming. Woodrow Wilson institutionalized it and Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to make it our “New Bill of Rights.”
Some of its goals:
Replace our Creator with the state. (“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”)
Replace parents with the state.
Re-write history to fit Marxist narrative.
Dumb down the population.
Post-FDR, step by step, hard leftists and foreign agents began infiltrating all levels of government, both elected and bureaucrats. Take some time and learn about Whitaker Chambers. If you are ready for a good scare read “The Naked Communist” by Cleon Skousen. Book dates to the 1950s and all the communist goals for our country have been achieved.
Former Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev told us how this would happen: “You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism. We will not have to fight you. We’ll so weaken your economy until you’ll fall like overripe fruit into our hands.”
When in junior high school I was in the choir. I remember being outraged when the text of music literature was being changed. I complained to the vice principal, to no avail, that our common history was being stolen. Even at that tender age I considered it a crime and a form of brainwashing.
Soon we began seeing court orders to remove the “Ten Commandments” from the public square in a clear attempt to change the “free practice of religion” to freedom from religion. It was necessary to carry forth the principles of Marxism.
Do not murder, conflicts with abortion.
Do not steal, conflicts with re-distributive change.
Do not covet or envy, conflicts with arguments for re-distributive change.
Do not lie — well, they would be prevented from speaking at all.
The term “honor thy father and thy mother” conflicts with the agenda for the state, through education, to indoctrinate, engage in social engineering and inculcating values that are not consistent with those of their parents.
You get the idea.
Nowhere has the takeover by the leftists been more evident than in all levels of education. The teachers’ unions’ leadership is driven by the Marxist Utopian dream, a lust for power and personal financial gain on a grand scale.
“When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.” — Albert Shanker.
Those union dues give the teachers’ unions their extraordinary influence and power. Dues go to fund the campaigns of leftist candidates who bow to the wishes of their union masters. Everyone knows the unions control our elected in Sacramento who fund and direct the California Department of Education. You can be sure that there is never a freedom-loving constitutionalist among them. The elected and the CDE define curriculum requirements and approve the textbooks that indoctrinate to the Marxist agenda. Textbooks are published to serve only the lowest common denominator. There is no question that our children are being dumbed down. Common Core math does not require a correct answer. History is being rewritten to be consistent to the manifesto’s agenda.
The school boards have been bought off. Nearly every board member has received funding and their marching orders from the union.
What is also telling is what is not being taught. Gone are shop classes that will prepare a student for non-academic vocations. Many studies have shown that learning to play an instrument is critical in abstract reasoning and brain development. Of course, most music classes are gone. Gone is the teaching of American civics and our founding principles.
Today the Orwellian Ministry of Truth is being overworked. Few are aware of the murderous intolerance of Marxism. We see that intolerance on our campuses and at the BLM street insurrections. The shocking part is the lack of response by our public (true believers?) officials. Now that the left has power, they are stepping into the light to proclaim their opposite-world worldview.
We cannot expect the voice of freedom to come from government. It must come from you. It is the people’s time to turn the tide and that must begin with education. It begins with bringing school choice to California.
In July, CaliforniaSchoolChoice.org will be sending the Education Freedom Act initiative to Sacramento for title and summary. If you believe in freedom, start mapping out the corner where you will be setting up a table to collect signatures. Taking back our country begins with taking back our children from the perversions in state-controlled education.
Stephen Smith is a graduate of UCLA and has lived and worked in the Los Angeles area his entire life. In 2010 and 2012 he was the Republican Party endorsed candidate running against longtime incumbent Xavier Becerra for the House of Representatives.
