by Loretta Baughan
Clash Daily Guest Contributor
Media and political pundits have been burning up the airwaves and spilling a lot of ink since Tuesday’s election trying to explain and point the finger of blame as to why Republicans failed to win the White House. Although some valid points have been raised, most analysts are entirely missing the big picture.
It began with the counterculture war on God, Mom and apple pie in the sixties and seventies. A tied-dyed rebellion against mainstream society waged mainly by young, white, middle class hippies and fueled by psychedelic drugs. It was about eliminating social and religious taboos. The dawning of the Age of Aquarius wasn’t just a catchy anthem, but its utopian social justice lyrics were actually taken seriously by these bell bottomed, anti-establishment freaks as a call to usher in a New Age.
John Lennon described this belief as a nirvana where we could “imagine there’s no countries … and no religion too … imagine no possessions … no need for greed or hunger … a brotherhood of man … all the people sharing all the world.” Unrealistic and foolhardy.
Such was the pacifist side of the coin, but flip it over. Spawned from the radical
revolutionary arm of the anti-Vietnam student protests arose domestic terrorism at the hand of the Weather Underground led by Bill Ayers. Declaring war upon the United States, they were responsible for numerous bombings, murder and mayhem.
Like other former hippies, rioters and bra burners, Ayers eventually cut his hair and pursued a career in education. By the 1990s, their radical ideals, beliefs and anti-Americanism infected teacher colleges, textbooks and classrooms across the nation with a vengeance. Ayers, himself, landed at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he became a professor of education, gaining influence in developing curriculum and basking in the adoration of education industry devotees.
The Marxist philosophy of “Critical Pedagogy” became the vehicle to achieving societal change by fundamentally changing the mindset of our next generation. Critical Pedagogy isn’t about teaching critical core subjects. It isn’t about teaching students to exercise their own critical thinking. It’s all about indoctrinating them to become critical of our nation and traditional American values.
It is why public education abandoned the teaching of patriotism and pride in our American heritage in favor of multiculturalism, social justice and white guilt. It’s how they’ve managed to destroy admiration for ingenuity and the entrepreneurial spirit of those who built our nation by demonizing these visionaries as greedy capitalists. Their destructive agenda is grooming our youth to willingly accept political correctness and globalism, to cultivate anti-free-market attitudes and favor redistributionist socialist policies. It transforms their world view and creates a desire for increased reliance upon government at the cost of personal liberty.
No aspect of traditional American values is off-limits.
The fruit of Critical Pedagogy is on full view within the cult of the Occupy Movement. It’s hallmark is the blind devotion to politicians who demonize success while selling the utopian beliefs and attitudes America’s youth has been spoon-fed … right under our noses.
As Conservatives, are we going to continue banging our heads against the wall attempting to appeal to our fellow citizens’ sense of patriotism and love of country, while expecting different results? Four years from now, every current public high school student who is learning to despise what made the United States great and clamor for more sugar daddy governmental control over their lives will become VOTERS. Are we ready to wave the white flag and allow Ayers and his ilk to win their war against America?
How do we save America from this fate?
Conservatives must get involved. Conservatives must step forward to run for and win enough seats on their local school boards to achieve a majority in order to purge Critical Pedagogy and Progressive Education hogwash from our public schools. Likewise, parents and grandparents must wake-up and demand an end to this indoctrination.
We have no other choice.
Image: Occupy Wall Street hippies, Sept. 2011; courtesy of David Shankbone; Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
Loretta Baughan is a conservative school board member who homeschooled her children and supports parental choice. Over the past twenty-five years, she’s been self-employed as a professional photographer, webdesigner and raising hunting spaniels.
