Collectivist thinking will not go away on its own. If we want the next generation to see each other as individuals rather than tribe members, we need to teach them a better way.
As the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues to unfold, the rhetoric surrounding the war seems to get stronger by the day.
Just when you think the politicians have exhausted their supply of condemnations, they come back with more for our consumption. The remarks are, in many cases, deserved. Putin’s actions are deeply immoral, and they ought to be named as such.
But, as so often happens in war, the target of these verbal assaults has quickly become blurry. Some days “Putin” is the problem. Other days it’s “the Russian aggressors” or simply “the Russians”.
Unfortunately, this blurriness has not been confined to rhetoric. Around the world, Russian products are being removed from stores, not because they have anything to do with the war, but simply because they come from a certain country. “Russia must be punished,” we are told, “because of its egregious acts.” Continue reading
Any who have studied the history of the War Between the States aka the War of Northern Aggression have probably heard of the infamous Dahlgren Papers. The Dahlgren Papers were a set of orders found on the body of Colonel Ulric Dahlgren after he was killed in Judson (Kill-Cavalry) Kilpatrick’s bungled attempt at a raid on Richmond, Virginia in 1864. This was supposedly a raid to attempt to free federal prisoners of war. One writer said it was a “Moe, Larry, and Curly kind of caper.”
“You’ve been there before, right?”
In going through books in my research library, some of which I am going to be forced to get rid of, due to severe space limitations in our new living situation, I came across a book I didn’t even remember. It was one written by James C. Hefley called “Textbooks on Trial” and it dealt primarily with the efforts of Mel and Norma Gabler to get decent textbooks approved for kids in Texas public schools way back in the 1960 and 70s. It was published in 1976, while the West Virginia Textbook Protest was still fresh in people’s minds and my family and I were still in West Virginia. I recall my wife and I hearing Norma Gabler speak at a God and Country rally back in the early 70s. 
Why not? Whether you’re experienced or inexperienced, whatever your situation, you already know why you want to homeschool your kids through high school. Now, what about how?
This past week she was subbing for an English class in our local High School and the screen she was posting in the classroom (above) all of a sudden had a “news-flash” pop up. Since when does a News headline have the right to “come into” and interrupt the classroom? Who is spying into the schools?
Knowledge of the theory and practical implementation of mass formation psychology can and is being used by propagandists, governments and the World Economic Forum to sway large groups of people to act for the benefit of the propagandists’ objectives. Although a major crisis of some sort can be extremely useful for propagandists to take advantage of (war, hyperinflation or public health for example), these psychological theories can and often are applied even without strong evidence of a compelling crisis. For this to be effective, the leader just has to be sufficiently compelling. 
Mr. Speaker — I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the suffering of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this house, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only…”
It is the year 1775, and France, as well as England, are awash with social ills. Jerry cruncher delivers an urgent message to Jarvis Lorry vie the Dover mail-coach. In the message, he gets instruction to wait at Dover for Lucie Manette, an orphan whose supposedly dead father is alive in France. They both go to Paris a meet Dr. Manette who is now a mad man who makes shoes. The love between daughter and father recall Manette to sanity.
Anyone who has read any of my work knows where I stand on the public school system. That is no secret. I remember, many years ago now, one of my main mentors, Rev. Ennio Cugini, made the comment to me that the public school system was a place to keep students up to date on the latest propaganda produced by the communists. When you look at what is being promoted today in these so-called institutions of learning, things like Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project, it is difficult not to agree with Pastor Cugini’s assessment of public schools. 
A recent study released from the National Centers for Education Statistics revealed that public schools have been experiencing a decrease in enrollment. Almost 4% of students were pulled out of public schools in the 2020-2021 school year. This was especially evident in the younger grades. According to the report, “Preschool enrollment dropped by 22 percent, and enrollment of kindergarteners fell by 9 percent.” 
Thirty-odd years ago, I taught adult basic education two nights a week in a minimum-security prison in Hazelwood, North Carolina.