Posted on 02/15/2014 7:02:24 AM PST by ProgressingAmerica
The "propaganda of the deed" or propagandas by deed have traditionally been an anarchist tool - and for violent purposes....... or have they? That's what we have been told for a long time, but why can't other activities by various statist oriented groups also be deeds intended to make a point - even non violently? I think they are and I think they have.
In the 1920's, the New York State Legislature put together a joint committee to investigate seditious activities, and the result of all this was a work titled "Revolutionary Radicalism". I actually think this does a disservice, because (as I will show below) revolutionaries are not the only ones who can use propaganda by deeds. Evolutionaries can also use it. In "Revolutionary Radicalism", the following is written: (page 1521)
In addition to the extensive propaganda by speech and writings in periodicals, newspapers, and other printed forms, there is a widespread propaganda by what may be termed deed, embracing within it, (a) bomb outrages; (b) direct action, including the general strike; (c) sabotage, and (d) mass demonstrations.
Likewise, in his "Letters to a Frenchman on the Present Crisis", Mikhail Bakunin wrote the following:
All of us must now embark on stormy revolutionary seas, and from this very moment we must spread our principles, not with words but with deeds, for this is the most popular, the most potent, and the most irresistible form of propaganda.
Other anarchist authors have written very similar things.
So the propaganda by deed is more potent and irresistible than the pamphlet, the leaflet, the speech, or the book. So then when John Dewey proposes to make the The School as a Social Center, how can anybody with a straight face make the case that this is not a propaganda by deed? Consider the following three things: (Not numbered to convey a numerical order of events)
(1) Progressives use government to take over the schools.
(2) Eventually, the school is made the social center.
(3) This makes government the social center.
Now, consider the dual use of the word "center". See, the words is where the progressives always get you. This blog post would not have worked in the year 1927 or 1942, for example, but here we are, with 100~ years of progressivism behind us to examine and learn from. The dual use of the word has already been employed - the progressives have not just made schools a social center, over the last century they have made schools the social center. Schools are held up as god-like institutions. The epitome of clean wind driven snow.
John Dewey in his "Schools as a Social Center" even makes the case that its about socialism, so eventually they wanted to make it 100% state run one way or another. It's just that we have seen the entire agenda be planted, blossom, and bear fruit - because here we are 100 years later.
So what kind of propaganda by deed happens every single day by millions of parents with their children in thousands of living rooms across the country? "Sure, little Johnny, you can go off to government school. You are safe there."
Government will take care of you - how is that for propaganda by deed? Not only is the very essence of the institution itself a propaganda by deed just by its mere existence, because you have turned government into the social center, but now the progressives have by extension turned parents into foot soldiers to spread the gospel of progressivism. Consider this, in his book "The New Democracy", Walter Weyl makes the following point: (page 166)
It is a revolution brought about by and through the common run of men, who abjure heroics, who sleep soundly and make merry, who "talk" politics and prize-fights, who obey alarm clocks, time-tables and a thousand petty but revered social conventions. They do not know that they are revolutionists.
Let's take a moment to consider the revered social convention of just wanting to be left alone, just wanting to live your life and watch your kids grow up? Somewhere in this mix is the daily revered social convention of sending your children off to school.
Those foot soldiers I just spoke of, they do not know that they are revolutionists.
John Dewey himself makes it clear that he viewed Horace Mann as the "Patron Saint" of progressive education, so then what did this "patron saint" actually write? Among other things he wrote this:
We, then, who are engaged in the sacred cause of education, are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause
How do parents give hostages to the cause? The Schools as a Social Center - the Center of the universe. They do not know that they are revolutionists.
One of the largest pieces of propaganda by deed in modern history.
Read up on Paolo Friere - even harder-core colonial Marxist pedagogy - and well-ensconced in America.
And why is Kindergarten a German word anyway?
Hmmm......
Well, you use to start first grade you were 6 or sometimes even 7. That is a long time to spend with your parents.
And Kindergarten was an import idea from Prussia.
To have children be raised by the state from the very beginning.
Why do you think they want Mandatory Pre-School? Or Hilary's "It takes a Village (to raise an idiot)?
Each year I read To Kill a Mockingbird with my eleventh grade American literature students, and I use the homeschool methods described in Bauer and Wise’s The Well Trained Mind. TKAM is a very conservative book, although at first read one might interpret it differently, and Harper Lee is not kind to John Dewey. Essentially she has the same opinion as this article’s author.
The more I learn about the evil of America's progressives, the better I understand my Grand Father's hatred and contempt of them. He raised 4 conservatives out 5 children in spite of their lies and propaganda during the progressive's prime time from before WWI up to WWII.
Thank you for your painstaking work to bring the history of socialist incursion in America to a new audience.
NOW a minority of people are howling. But it started long, long ago.
Perhaps those reading this thread also may wish to read the following quotations:
The following is excerpted from a series entitled, "Lessons on Liberty," by a Co-Editor of "Our Ageless Constitution" & "Rediscovering the Ideas of Liberty." The "Lesson" contrasts the Founders' Ideas of Liberty" to be taught to rising generations, with the Counterfeit Ideas being promoted in the so-called "public schools" of America for decades.
IDEAS OF LIBERTY:
(from America’s Founders and Presidents)“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.” (Jefferson - 1774)
“Statesmen may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone which can establish the principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.” (John Adams - 1775)
“The Sacred Rights of Mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the Hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.” (Alexander Hamilton)
“Without God, there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first and the most basic expression of Americanism. Thus the founding fathers saw it, and thus, with God’s help, it will continue to be.” (Dwight Eisenhower)
“The same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe, the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.” (John F. Kennedy - 1961 Inaugural)
“…it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly implore His protection and favor….”(George Washington)
“Now the virtue which had been infused into the Constitution…and was to give it…the stability and duration to which it was destined, was no other than…those abstract principles…proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence—namely, the self-evident truths of the…unalienable rights of man…the…sovereignty of the people, always subordinate to a rule of right and wrong, and always responsible to the Supreme Ruler of the universe for the rightful exercise of that sovereign…power.” (John Quincy Adams, on the occasion of The Jubilee of the Constitution - 1839)
"Today, across our nation, we see consequences of decades of gross neglect and outright censorship of the Founders’ ideas from textbooks and from our public discourse. We have allowed counterfeit ideas to dominate the public square, and the Founders’ principles have been crowded out. Unwittingly, many teachers and other unknowing officials have participated in the agenda of an unelected mind-controlling elite whose tyrannical actions have robbed generations of Americans from reading or studying the ideas that made America free. Like termites, they have eroded our foundations as effectively as if they had burned the books. Yet, not once have they been willing to call it by its rightful name—censorship. Once, in America, stifling ideas about the Creator and Creator-endowed liberty was considered unthinkable. . . .
"The ideas of liberty must be passed on from generation to generation if liberty is to survive. These ideas, when they are allowed to be examined freely, will prevail, because their appeal is to reason and to the love for liberty that is deep in the human heart. John Adams warned: 'The people of America now have the best opportunity and the greatest trust in their hands, that Providence ever committed to so small a number…if they betray their trust, their guilt will merit even greater punishment than other nations have suffered, and the indignation of Heaven.'
COUNTERFEIT IDEAS:
(from some of those whose views have dominated national educational policy)“The idea of God is the keystone of a perverted society. The true root of liberty, equality and culture is atheism.” (Karl Marx)
Our thinking is enlightened “in the degree in which we cease to depend upon belief in the supernatural.” (John Dewey, father of ‘progressive education’ and 1st President of American Humanist Society)
“…democracy is a human faith and movement, unencumbered by supernatural preconceptions.” (John Childs, a protégé of John Dewey at Columbia)
“…the majority of our youth still hold the values of their parents, and if we do not alter this pattern, if we do not resocialize ourselves to accept change, our society may decay.” (John Goodlad, 1971 Report to President, Schooling for the Future)
“As in 1933, humanists still believe that traditional theism, especially a faith in the prayer-hearing God, who is assumed to love and care for persons, to hear and understand their prayers, and be able to do something about them, is an unproved and outmoded faith.” (Humanist Manifesto II, 1973)
“…the most important factor moving us toward a secular society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is sixteen tends to lead toward elimination of religious superstition.” (Paul Blanshard, The Humanist, March-April, 1976)
“It [the Nat’l. Education Association’s publication list] includes the delegitimizing of all authority save that of the state, the degradation of traditional morality and the encouragement of citizens in general and children in particular to despise the rules and customs that make their society a functional democracy. The NEA is drifting into exceedingly dangerous waters, and probably carrying more than a few teachers and pupils with it.” (Chester E. Finn, Jr., Ass’t. Sec. Of Education & Prof. Of Education & Public Policy, Vanderbilt Univ., 1982)
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“Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines which conflict with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence…let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountains whose waters spring close to the blood of the Revolution.” (Abraham Lincoln)
Another web site containing some of these and other pertinent quotations, here.
John Dewey.
The grandfather of Alice Dewey, Stanley Ann Dunham’s (the myth-mother of Zero) old buddy. A commie crew.
Home schooling list? Good info on this thread!
This looks good for both lists.
bkmk
Fortunately, the healthy, thriving Christian churches are doing the same thing. Our Nazarene church is rapidly becoming the social center of the community with programs and activities for all ages, but heavily invested in children and young adults. Other large evangelical churches in the area are doing the same thing. It is a wonderful resource for parents who want to arm their children against a toxic culture and a controlling political class.
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