Posted on 11/18/2008 12:51:22 PM PST by jazusamo
There is an ongoing epidemic in the land that may be more dangerous than any we've experienced before. It's not spread by bacteria or viruses, but can be fatal not simply to a person but to a nation. That epidemic is one of anti-Americanism or what might be called hate-Americanism.
It is spread in many ways, including by politicians and a political party, by a president-elect and his associates, by the mainstream media and by colleges and universities. One of the most important ways it is spread is by the teaching of history in our colleges and universities, which is facilitated by historians and history textbooks that are profoundly anti-American.
I first became acquainted with this epidemic and its spread by historians when I read David Horowitz's book, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. The book focuses on only 101 professors, but they represent tens of thousands of such professors teaching, preaching and writing anti-Americanism and similar pernicious ideologies - and indoctrinating their students accordingly.
Consider the case of Professor Howard Zinn, emeritus professor of political science at Boston University, who wrote one of the most influential and often used history texts. It is titled A People's History of the United States. Mr. Zinn's history is not one of the American people, but an indictment of white people and capitalism. All of America, all of our sacred documents such as the Declaration of Independence, and all of our wars are explained in terms of America's lust for money and power. For example, Pearl Harbor is blamed on America, not Japan, and the fight against fascism, in Mr. Zinn's book, was all about money and empire. Mr. Zinn writes, "Quietly, behind the headlines in battles and bombings, American diplomats and businessmen worked hard to make sure when the war ended, American economic power would be second to none in the World."
America saved the world from communism, fascism and Imperial Japan, a trio of perhaps the worst barbarians in history, and Mr. Zinn and his ilk hate us for doing that. In Mr. Zinn's history textbook, America is all bad all of the time. He totally omits Gettysburg, the Normandy invasion and other great moments in American history. Instead, focusing on such events as the My Lai massacre episode during the Vietnam War, and U.S. bombs falling on hotels, air-raid shelters and markets during first Gulf War to stop Sadaam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Mr. Zinn defends America's enemies and denigrates America. He sees America and the world through a Marxist-tinted lens that turns the truth about America on its head.
Mr. Zinn is all too typical of those teaching history in American colleges and universities. There is Professor Peter Kirstein of Saint Xavier University who regards the United States as "the leading terrorist and criminal nation in the world today." He is not viewed as a radical on the fringe, and in 1997 won the St. Xavier University's Teaching Excellence Award. Like Mr. Zinn, he views America's interventions as having nothing to do with self-defense and having everything to do with dreams of hegemony. He thinks it was all right for Hussein to have weapons of mass destruction, as so did the U.S. He sees no difference between the greatest democracy in the history of the world possessing nuclear weapons and dictators, who also happen to be genocidal maniacs, also possessing them. Many influential academics are very much at home with anti-Americanism, as is the president-elect of the U.S. according to his own friendly biographer.
These anti-American historians have influence far beyond their own universities and students. For example, there is Professor Eric Foner, a professor of history at Columbia University. He is an apologist for American communism and has authored such remarks as this one made after the 9/11 attack: "I'm not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House." One noted authority, Theodore Draper, said, "From [Foner's] account it would be hard to understand why so many millions of immigrants should have come to the United States for more freedom."
Mr. Foner's text on American history was adopted by 300 collegiate institutions in its first year of publication. As you can see, the hate-America propaganda is starting to go mainstream and becomes more threatening to a free society with each passing day.
There is Professor Angela Davis, a "University Professor" at the University of California, Santa Cruz, one of only seven so honored with that title in the entire University of California System. What best illustrates her thinking is what she describes as the "Prison-Industrial Complex," which leads her to advocate we free all prisoners who are members of minority groups as she considers them all "political prisoners." She has never written a serious academic work, although she has received all kinds of university honors. There is even a lounge named after her at the University of Michigan. So again, these nutty, hate-America professors are not only swarming like cockroaches all over our institutions of higher learning, but also they are given prestigious positions and high honors. There is no way to calculate the damage they do to their students and to America. So if you notice some of your young college graduates or college student's friends have what might seem to be strange anti-American and unpatriotic ideas, this may help you better understand the source of their thinking.
To give another perspective on what's going on I salute Larry Schweikart for writing his latest book, 48 Liberal Lies About American History: (That You Probably Learned in School). He is a professor of history at the University of Dayton and is also a co-author of A Patriot's History of the United States. In his latest book, he surveys the textbooks of the liberal history professors and documents how they tell lies to distort American history and attempt to tarnish America's image in the eyes of their students and the world.
He introduces his readers to the problem of these dishonest history books by asking a question: If you surveyed 10 of the most widely used American history survey textbooks that look at the 20th century, what picture do you think would be most commonly represented? Would it be Times Square at the ending of World War II? Would it be a smiling Franklin D. Roosevelt? Or would it be the atomic bomb? Mr. Schweikart answers his question this way: "It might surprise you to know that one of the most frequently appearing images depicting American life in the 1920s - not Reconstruction - is that of the Ku Klux Klan ... According to these historians, the Klan, above all other groups, defined America ... This over-the-top coverage, meant to characterize the 1920s as an age of backwardness and bigotry, is common among almost all textbooks..."
Or consider the textbooks approach to the wars of the 20th century. One textbook, for example, doesn't include a single photograph of our soldiers serving in World War I, despite the fact that over four million served and over 53,000 were killed. Without a single photograph of the war what do they include? Mr. Schweikart writes, "Instead, police are shown beating strikers with their nightsticks under a discussion of the dislocations of the postwar economy."
In general the textbooks show a distinct leftward slant portraying America as a racist, sexist, imperialistic regime. These professors live in the land of Orwellian inversions, calling good evil and evil good. Here are some of those 48 liberal lies about American history. Some of them are often told in the mainstream media in discussions of various questions of public policy, and they are often mouthed by politicians willing to distort reality to prove their point and to win elections.
LIE: No terrorists or weapons of mass destruction were hiding in Iraq. This is the classic example of the Big Lie Theory: repeat a lie often enough and it is finally accepted as the truth.
Mr. Schweikart notes everyone agreed, even before George W. Bush was elected, there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, The French, British, Spanish, Australian, Japanese, German, Israeli, and NATO intelligence services all confirmed the existence of such weapons, as did Iran. Egypt's president and the King of Jordan also told General Tommy Franks these weapons were in Iraq. Even Russia's Vladimir Putin not only affirmed the weapons were there, and even warned the U.S. they were about to be used against us. The U.N. passed more than a dozen resolutions affirming the existence of these weapons in Iraq.
The existence of such weapons was established by their use in the gassing of Kurds and their use in the Iran-Iraq War. Deserters and defectors from Iraq's military affirmed the existence of these weapons. A long list of Democrats affirmed the existence of the weapons including President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Clinton. Prior to the 2003 invasion, two of Mr. Hussein's sons-in-law defected and told us of the existence of the weapons.
There were 100 cases of mysterious illnesses reported by cleanup personnel suggesting the causes were traces of missed weapons of mass destruction. A U.N. inspector stated Iraq had nuclear weapons and identified where the uranium was being processed. According to the Kay interim report, the infamous "looting" was an attempt to conceal weapons of mass destruction. An ex-Iraqi General, Georges Sada, in a book published in 2006 confirmed the existence of such weapons. He also described how weapons of mass destruction in 2002 and 2003 had been smuggled out of Iraq. After the war, tapes and documents were recovered, documenting how Saddam had discussed these weapons and how arrangements had been made to smuggle the weapons out of Iraq in the event of an invasion. Mr. Schweikart also documents an extensive amount of evidence showing the link between Iraq and terrorists including al-Qaeda. Schweikart concluded, "George Bush's original claim of both WMDs and terrorists in Iraq were not only valid, they were overwhelming."
LIE: Muslim terrorists are poor and uneducated... It is a common refrain that poverty is the cause of terrorism, so the remedy is to eliminate poverty. Even President-elect Barack Obama suggested this with his comments as a state legislator right after 9/11. The evidence is virtually all to the contrary.
Mr. Schweikart examines terrorists from the beginning of their reign and finds a "picture of affluent, educated Middle Easterners emerges." For example, Sayyid Qutb, the founder of the radical Islamic movement, "held a comfortable post as supervisor in the ministry of Education" and was "in the mainstream of the vast bureaucratic middle class."
Osama bin Laden, one of the master terrorists, as most know, came from a wealthy family. Mr. Osama's sidekick, Ayman al-Zawahiri was well-educated and attended medical school. He grew up in a middle-class suburb of Cairo, and came from one of the most prominent families in Egypt.
A study by Marc Sageman found 75 percent of terrorists studied came from middle class families and two-thirds had college degrees. After reviewing a long series of studies, Mr. Schweikart concludes whatever the causes of terrorism might be, it is clear poverty is not one of them. Liberals, it seems, would give terrorists food stamps and scholarships. Conservatives would kill or capture them.
LIE: LBJ's Great Society had a positive impact on the poor. The liberal textbooks can't get in enough praise for the Great Society. One textbook by Blum et. al., put in this way: "[The Great Society was] the most impressive record of American legislation in a single session for 30 years...[It] represented the culmination of New Deal liberalism in its effort to reverse patterns of privation."
What was a total failure is portrayed as one of the great success stories of history. But Mr. Schweikart found otherwise: "Ironically, progress against poverty had been rapid from 1960 to 1968, with the largest drop coming after the John Kennedy tax cut. However, in 1968, when the Great Society programs were coming online, progress against poverty ended, and for several years the United States actually had more poor people."
Mr. Schweikart goes on to show how the Great Society did more to destroy the black family than anything else, because it encouraged single families to get welfare and put two-parent families at a disadvantage when it came to getting welfare. "By 1990, 57 percent of all black births were out of wedlock."
This was only reversed in part long after the Great Society by welfare reform, which managed to get people off of welfare and back to work. The entire problem may never be solved if politicians and planners continue to work on ideas that history shows are false. If we are to progress in the years ahead and make sound public policy decisions we need citizens who understand our history and the nature of America. We will be severely handicapped if they are under misconceptions and historical inaccuracies now so voluminously conveyed by history professors and their textbooks. Mr. Schweikart concludes:
"For future generations to recognize that they live in the most blessed nation on earth, they need to have an accurate and honest record of America's past, always tempered with the understanding that because we remain a 'shining city on a hill,' the inquiry into the past should always be balanced with an appreciation for the liberties that the past has provided."
What can you do to fight the hate-America gang, which if not stopped might irreparably injure or even destroy our democracy. I have three suggestions (but you may have other and perhaps even better ones):
* Stop relying on the mainstream media, which in many ways feed and actually support the hate-America poison.
* In terms of politics and candidates, try to avoid those that seem to be in the hate-America gang or at least on its fringes. I personally find the Democratic Party would fit in that category, as do many of its candidates and office holders. For some background on this issue see two of Mr. Horowitz's books, The Party of Defeat and The Shadow Party.
* Support groups that battle the kind of poison and bias found at many of our major colleges and universities. One that is working on the problem and has already accomplished major reforms is Mr. Horowitz's Freedom Center. I'd recommend supporting that work. I'd also suggest reading Mr. Horowitz's two books on the subject. One is The Professors and the other is Indoctrination U: The Left's War Against Academic Freedom.
On the Web site of the Freedom Center, you'll find this quotation from Nobel Laureate winner Elie Wiesel: "If to be free is the most important goal of all, then to help someone else to be or to become free must be the most sublime and rewarding of human endeavors." That is not only a sublime and rewarding human endeavor, but also one of the most important obligations of citizenship in the greatest democracy in the history of the world.
Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, and professor at the Wharton School. He is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. You can reach him at advocate@thebulletin.us.
Great article. The sixties radicals decided to take over from within and have largely succeeded. The audio to “Indoctrinate U” is available free as a podcast through American Conservative University. I downloaded it last week and found it fascinating.
Yes, the sixties radicals stood out when reading the article. I was glad to see him mention Angela Davis, she stands out in my mind. She, Ayers and many others should have persued their educations in federal prison and dedicated their lives to educating their fellow inmates. It’s a travesty that they were allowed to teach our young people over the years.
A vast majority of the scientists say students would be harmed if the state requires the teaching of the "weaknesses" of evolution, according to the survey conducted for the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, an organization that works on issues involving religious freedom, civil liberties and public education.
Next stop, Communism.
Revisionist history works wonders.
It's a place where they can go to report indoctrination, see many reports which have been filed, and simply not feel so alone in their outrage.
www.Noindoctrination.org
sadly, it's parents who have allowed it... we pay to send our children to college... and before that, we willingly hand our children over to the government when we send them to government school...
You may be interested.
“Communist Goal 17. 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.”
I saw Bill Bennett at the Governors’ meeting (on CSpan) yesterday. He urgently stressed that conservatives must get active to influence our values in the schools, published media and entertainment industries. (which is exactly what the communist goals have done to undermine our country!) He spoke of educating young minds with American values. Exactly my thoughts! .. but he is the first person I’ve heard speak it out loud to a collection of conservative governors! David Horowitz has been active in the schools, but as expected, the media folks pretty well ignore him.
At any rate, Bill Bennet’s comments appeared to fall on deaf ears. .. but maybe not.
I don’t think there’s any hope to reclaim our youth unless we get the anti-American agenda out of our education system.
Great site. Thanks for the link. I will make sure my daughter knows about it before she goes to college. Of course, I am pushing Hillsdale College, so maybe she won't need it!
That site looks interesting, thanks for linking it. I’ve marked it and will check it out.
Do you have a link for that? TIA
FMCDH(BITS)
If she goes to Hillsdale, she definitely won’t need it, but some of her friends might, so tell her to pass it on!
Thanks.
So what stops conservatives from being academically inclined?
I used to agree with this statment, but I fear that it has gone too far with the public schools. When I used to be a government school teacher and parent, I would try to make my voice heard. But this was next to impossible, and there were very few parents willing to back me up. It is not like there are a bunch of dissatisfied parents waiting for direction. Those who see what is happening are taking their kids out. The parents whose kids are still in the government schools generally are happy to have a free babysitter and a place to go for sporting events.
There is nothing wrong with occasionally trying to do things like speak at school board meetings or influence local elections, but I don't see massive change happening that way. Any parent who sees the truth needs to get their child out and start homeschooling or private-schooling. The public schools losing the dollars attached to that child is the only thing that might make them start listening eventually.
I had been looking and found it. Scroll down to #279 & #280.
http://acu.libsyn.com/?search_string=Indoctrinate+U&Submit=Search&search=1
Amazing to me is how few people see what is happening to our country. Either that, or they agree with, or deny it.
If you want to listen to it on an ipod, you can also search itunes for “American Conservative University podcast”. All of their podcasts are free on itunes.
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