If control of a society is a major goal, what better way to gain that control is there than to indoctrinate that society into a ‘promised better way of life’. Of course, those who have come to know freedom and have taken a stand to maintain it, will be difficult to approach. So, an alternative method must be initiated if a goal is to be achieved. What better way than to start with the inexperienced youth of a nation or with members of society who will listen to anything and question nothing? Our educational systems and media options offer a perfect route into this needed indoctrination.
> Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
‘Getting control’ includes permeating the culture with corrosive and false perspectives about the true principles of freedom and about those who brought them to America. For example, paint Western culture, capitalism, and traditional American values as divisive, one-sided, greedy, racist, or old fashioned. Parents need to monitor what their children are bringing home as ‘facts’ in part of the school curriculum. The results of a softened curriculum can already be seen and are being measured. In 2003, American 15-year-olds ranked among the lower half of all nations measured for math, reading, and science literacy. (National Center for Educational Statistics, Digest of Educational Statistics). Detracting from a solid education is a national addiction to fantasy worlds realistically created in color, sound, dimension and plot, via television, internet, and video games. By age 21, the average young American will have spent 10,000 hours playing video games…that’s double the time it takes to earn a 4-year university degree. SAT scores, used to qualify students for college, have been falling for years. Tied to these events is an active effort to rewrite history. Those cultures that were conquered, rejected or absorbed during America’s birthing period are being exalted as more virtuous and noble than America’s own. Innovative thinkers in the Founding Generation are denigrated, including the Founding Fathers, Christopher Columbus, and the industrial giants. The founders of America’s success formula must be disparaged and forgotten so that eternal principles of natural law that led to liberty and prosperity may likewise be diminished. Those seeking ultimate control over American lives must first create a detached and illiterate citizenry that is malleable to a false narrative and forgetfulness.
> Gain control of all student newspapers. A vast majority of American student newspapers began reflecting the same anti-establishment, anti-authority perspectives, a trend which started in the 1960s. Student newspapers stopped being useful sources of information and were reduced to glorified opinion pieces that ranted against the cause du jour, or were even further reduced to being only a forum for venting and to satisfy one’s vanity to be seen in print. Not all campuses went this way, but the national trend has been moving strongly in that direction. In addition to being ideologically unsound, this approach fails to develop students’ skills as journalists.
> Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack. This goal was an approach to amplify popular anger toward US institutions that were targeted for elimination by the Communists. Prior to 1960 this goal seemed unthinkable. By April of that year, and continuing through the decade, campus rioters organized and protested whatever imposition they felt worthy of a frontal attack. In 1967, students set fire to 100 cities in a single summer. The so-called ‘Occupy Movement’ beginning at Wall Street in 2011, was an attempt at a resurgence of the ‘power to the people’ days, to protest so-called social and economic inequality. The Communist solution…the government must take from the ‘haves’ and give to the ‘have-nots’ to force things to be equal…the very definition of socialism. (Do we see that effort taking place in today’s government policies?)
> Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, and policy-making positions. Media bias is hotly debated, especially by the biased press. Liberal historians in the late 1960s began admitting they had been biased and that American conservatism had largely been ignored. By the time it was admitted it was too late as the damage had already been done. American history teachers had stopped teaching about the presence of Americans in both parties who wanted the fundamental values and freedoms of America preserved. (“Leftist Scholars Look Right at Last, and Find a History”, The New York Times, April 18, 1998). In the meantime, media assaults against traditional American values continued. Conservatives called it ‘liberal bias’. Liberals called it ‘the free press’. The Quarterly Journal of Economics published a study showing an enormous shift to the left across all media fronts was taking place. (“A Measure of Media Bias”, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. CXX, Issue 4, November 2005). With a constant diet of misinformation, an ill-informed citizenry is more easily swayed into supporting socialism. (We can see the results of that effort almost every day in policies and choices made by the general society.)
> Gain control of key positions in radio, TV and motion pictures. Evidence of Communist infiltration in the media is subjective, however, many see a definite impact on the values of society as a whole. The demise of blockbuster movie giants that rose to prominence by promoting traditional American and Judeo-Christian themes was certainly a societal catastrophe. In their place came writers, producers, and directors who created movies, media content, and themes that celebrated the antithesis of traditional American values. For decades, a cry for tolerance in the name of ‘free speech’ was pushed through Hollywood, and today a new intolerance has risen. Anyone expressing an opposing view to Hollywood’s ‘anything goes’ rebellion is ostracized. In Hollywood, all are equal…but some are more equal than others. Some examples are California’s Proposition 8 and the personal opinion of Orson Scott Card, whose book, Ender’s Game, was made into a movie. His opposition to homosexuality made him and the stars of the movie targets of demonstrations. A 2014 study in ‘Movieguide’ showed that the American public prefers pro-American, pro-Biblical themed movies by a margin of 3 to 1. In 23 years of study the margin has been as high a 7 to 1. (Movieguide Presents 23rd Annual Report; Again, Shows How Most Family-Friendly Movies Earn More, February 12, 2015).
> Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press. This goal was largely achieved when several parties sought Supreme Court clarification about obscenity, erotica, free speech and censorship, and the Court was unable to cleanly resolve the matter. A revealing look into the soul of America was exposed when the Court could no longer explain why obscenity was harmful. In 1969, the Court determined an adult could have obscene material as a right of privacy, but there were limits put in place. In 1999, the Court upheld the States’ right to outlaw possession and distribution of child pornography. (Roth v. United States (1957), Stanley v. Georgia (1969), Osborne v. Ohio (1990), Reno v. ACLU (1997), Ashcroft v. ACLU (2002))
> Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV. In 1959, the average American would not have believed what has happened to American morals and standards as a result of today’ s cultural breakdown. The internet has magnified the problem a thousand-fold with on-line pornography reported to play a role in 56% of all divorces in America. Another report says 70% of youth ages 15-17 accidentally stumble across pornography online. Men were more likely to view erotic images while women were more likely to read erotic stories. (Pornography Statistics, 2013 Edition, Covenant Eyes, Owosso, Michigan). The world’s largest porn site receives more than four billion hits each month. Research has determined that 89 percent of all pornography is produced in the United States. And we wonder why we have a problem?
> Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, and healthy.” By 1973, homosexuality was declassified as a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association. The World Health Organization followed suit in 1990. (Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis, Princeton University Press, 1987). Studies of the ‘gay lifestyle’ do not support stability in the homosexual relationships. A 1978 study found that 83 % of homosexual men had 50 or more ‘partners’ in their lifetime, while 28% had more than 1,000. Most ‘lesbians’ had fewer than 10 same-sex ‘partners’, and rarely were they with strangers. Before the AIDS epidemic took hold, about 79% of men said more than half their sex partners were strangers. In 1984, after the AIDS epidemic took hold, the average number of sex partners among homosexual men dropped from six new ‘partners’ to four new ‘partners’ per month. There is a higher rate of psychiatric illnesses among gays and lesbians than heterosexuals, and a 1977 study of life span showed gay and bisexual men lost up to 20 years of life expectancy. (John R. Diggs, Jr. M.D.,”The Health Risks of Gay Sex”, the Catholic Medical Association, 2002 and P. Cameron and K. Cameron, “Does homosexual activity shorten life?”, 1998, Family Research Institute). The recent push for gay marriage rights, as guaranteed by the Supreme Court in 2015, is the latest in an effort to break apart the natural family and institutionalize homosexuality. Now, public commentary supporting the natural family and denouncing homosexuality is attacked as ‘hate speech’. (We have just finished a month of celebrating abomination.)
> Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce. Pop culture today has redefined family as anybody united under any circumstance for the purpose of attending to life under the same roof. With the decline in support for the traditional family of mother, father and children, the cultural and financial costs on American society have been enormous. For example, the birth rate among unmarried women rose 310 percent. For teenagers (15-19), the rate grew 337 percent. With this increase came an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases. About a third of the United States (approx. 110 million) currently have a sexually transmitted disease. Medical costs from sexual promiscuity exceeds $16 billion annually. (CDC Fact Sheet, Incidence, Prevalence, and Cost of Sexually Transmitted Infections in the United States, February 2013.) America also has some of the highest divorce rates in the world. Easy divorce is creating problems. With marriage now elevated to the federal level, as demonstrated in the recent Supreme Court approval of gay marriage (2015), and, with cohabitation shrugged away as an acceptable and viable alternative to a committed relationship, rates of marriage have been dropping. In 1960, about 72 percent of American adults were married. Today it is just under 51 percent. Today, 41 percent of first marriages in the US end in divorce; 60 percent of second marriages end in divorce; and 73 percent of third marriages end in divorce. No wonder! Entering marriage can be a scarry move where one slight disagreement can dissolve a relationship and the work of one member be taken by the other member as a consolation. Marriage has become a risky move. As for increased promiscuity, one measurement of change is the rising number of teen pregnancies and the demand for abortions that skyrocketed after Roe v. Wade. This gives some the right to ‘infant murder’ to solve an inconvenience. In obedience to a UN order, in 2012 President Obama…and I use the term loosely…forced insurance companies to provide free contraceptives and ‘day after’ abortion drugs to their subscribers. This detractor of family values was seen as ‘progress’. Another Communist goal achieved!
Next week we will look at efforts by communist activists to discredit some of the founding features of this nation…the church and religion, prayer and religious expression, the Constitution, and the credibility of the American founding fathers.
– Bob Munsey
“Before you assume, learn the facts! Before you judge, understand why! Before you hurt someone, feel! And before you speak, think!”
Geezer Politics 