Abolitionism, Spiritualism, and Women’s Lib

by Al Benson Jr.

The radical Abolitionist Movement in the North (separate from the conservative abolitionist movement in the South) in the years from the 1830s through “reconstruction” at the end of the War of Northern Aggression, was the cause of many problems that we are still faced with today, two of which are the modern “Women’s Liberation Movement.” and the “Civil Rights Movement.”

Many in our day, without a correct understanding of the real intent of the Abolitionist Movement, have sought to draw a parallel between it and today’s Pro-Life Movement. This is something that should never be done. The contemporary Pro-Life Movement is able to stand on its own without resorting to the apostate underpinnings of 19th century radical abolitionism.  Radical abolitionism in the 1800s produced men of the stripe of abolitionist/terrorist John Brown. His solution to the slavery problem was to execute slave owners, or even potential slave owners during late night visits to their homes while their wives and children were forced to stand by and watch the executions. Should the present Pro-Life Movement ally itself with such a history? If it does so then it will be to its own hurt one day.

Although there were undoubtedly some Christian people in the Abolitionist Movement, by and large, it was an experiment in rank apostasy. Many of its adherents had become enamored of the strange doctrines of Spiritualism  that so permeated mid-19th century America.  Yet others had become devotees of Unitarianism–yet another form of apostasy from Christian truth.

In her book Radical Spirits author Ann Braude  observed that: “Every notably progressive family of the nineteenth century had its advocate of Spiritualism, some of them more than one…The ubiquitous  Beecher family contributed Charles Beecher  and Isabella Beecher to the ranks, while Harriet Beecher Stowe became a serious investigator…As already noted, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison was an early convert and remained loyal to the movement until his death. The famous Grimke sisters,  Sarah and Angelina talked to spirits.” All of these people were abolitionists and all, according to Braude, were involved in Spiritualism. Every wonder why your history books forgot to mention any of this?

Braude’s book, on page 60, noted that: “Radical abolitionists, in turn, found in Spiritualism a religion of harmony with their individualist principles. Abolitionists’ interests in both  women’s rights and Spiritualism derived from their fierce loyalty to the principles of individualism. Radical abolitionists agreed with Romantics and Transcendentalists that the church, the clergy, and the Bible were so many enslavers of the human spirit. They also believed that individualist principles required constant agitation in order to effect the transformation of society.” Braude here has come out and admitted what many of us have been saying for years, that radical abolitionism was about much more than freeing slaves–it was about the transformation of our society. In other words, those people were the practitioners of the Marxist “Critical Theory” agenda in their day, even though that term had yet to be coined. They wanted no interference from the Christian Church as they sought to denigrate the Christian culture around them and replace it with their own. Their agenda was to remake American society in their own image–a not-so-subtle form of idolatry.  Is this really any different from what is going on today?

One of the leaders in the 19th century Women’s Lib Movement was Susan B. Anthony. They put a postage stamp out with her picture on it several years ago. Another author, Kathleen Berry, in her book Susan B. Anthony took a little different tack on Anthony’s worldview. She noted that: “In her autobiography, Elizabeth Cady Stanton described Susan’s spirituality as that of an agnostic. Susan never denied the existence of God, but her beliefs were secularized and lodged in the world around her. Her father, who had grown increasingly frustrated with the limited world view of the Quakers…turned to the Unitarian Church. Susan was also sympathetic to Unitarian beliefs.” So, however you take it, Spiritualist or Unitarian, Anthony’s beliefs were a radical departure from orthodox Christianity–and this was the foundation for Women’s Lib!

Braude, in Radical Spirits has identified Spiritualism as being present at the Women’s Rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. She has stated, quite plainly, that: “From this time on, Spiritualism and Women’s Rights intertwined repeatedly  as both became mass movements that challenged the existing norms of American life.  The two movements shared many leaders and activists.”

It is worth noting, coincidentally, that the Spiritualist Movement in this country began to make its inroads right around 1848, the same year that the socialist and communist revolts began in Europe. In fact, one of the female “Forty-Eighters,” Mathilda Franziska Anneke, wife of socialist agitator Fritz Anneke, once she came to America, became one of the leading lights in the Women’s Rights Movement.  Walter Kennedy and I, in our book Lincoln’s Marxists document quite a bit of this. Anneke worked closely with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton  and even lobbied in Washington in behalf of Women’s Rights.

This gives you a brief overview of the connections between the radical abolitionists, the Spiritualists, the Unitarians, and some of the Forty-Eighters, and the Women’s libbers. Just for a moment, stop and reflect on what these people have done to our once-Christian culture while the church-at-large has continued to slumber.

Writer Henry Makow Ph.D. noted, in an article published back in 2010 that: “The Women’s Liberation Movement was patterned on the Civil Rights Movement.  They are off-the-shelf Communist psycho-social operations. To be effective, they must appear to reflect a popular groundswell rather than an elite agenda from above.” Makow felt these movements might have rectified some genuine injustices, but then said “…their hidden purpose is to destabliize American society.” He’s right. Undoubtedly he is referring here to the contemporary version of the Women’s Rights Movement rathen than the 19th century one, but no matter how you look at it, it’s all of one fabric and it all has, as the main agenda, the destruction of Christian culture in this country. We need to begin to wake up and understand this.

Advertisement

Agitation Propaganda Then and Now

by Al Benson Jr.

This is a subject I have written about in the past but it is still relevant today and so I don’t think it hurts to remind folks. All radical and anti-Christian revolutionary movements opposed to God and His lawful authority have used agitation propaganda, or what has been called “agit-prop” and they still use it today. Such material has been used to inflame the passions and emotions of ordinary people so they will, without benefit of serious thought or reflection, become cannon fodder for the revolutionaries in their quest to overthrow legitimate God-given authority. This fits right in with the “critical theory” technique employed by the Marxists and their handlers today, though it is hardly something new.

It went on before the French Revolution got into full swing and was, no doubt, responsible for much of what followed in that horrid debacle. The late historian, Otto Scott, in his book Robespierre–the Voice of Virtue (Mason & Lipscomb, New York), noted that the French revolutionaries of that day made more than adequate use of the printed word. On page 47 of his book he commented on the use of pamphlet shops in Paris and how much material they turned out.  He quoted an English observer of all this who said, of the printed pamphlets: “Thirteen came out today, sixteen yesterday, ninety-two last week…nineteen twentieths are in favor of liberty…violent against clergy and nobility…Nothing in reply appears…”  Note his last comment–“Nothing in reply appears.” In regard to reaching the general public, or at least those who could read, the Leftist revolutionaries (for that’s really what they were) had the entire field to themselves. There was no rebuttal to their vitriol whatever.

In this country, in the decades of abolitionist ascendancy before the War of Northern Aggression, the media was used in the exact same way, to promote the careers of such men as abolitionist/terrorist John Brown. Although Brown, a failure in every business he was ever involved in, was nothing more than an impoverished-most-of-the-time murderer, he was, via the Northern “news” media, given the appearance of a saint, of at least the stature of Oliver Cromwell. It was a glowing tribute to the prowess of the Northern “news” media that a man like John Brown was able to be passed off as anything other than the murderer he really was. Yet it happened.  It was one of the higher points of what passed for abolitionist “journalism.”

Otto Scott, in his excellent and informative book The Secret Six–The Fool As Martyr noted that: “John Brown appeared…with a reputation created by James Redpath of the N.Y. Tribune, attested by Richard Hinton of the Boston Traveler and the Chicago Tribune, enameled by Phillips of the New York Times in his recent book on Kansas, by the Times’ Sam Tappen, and by Richard Henry Kagi of the New York Post.”  So the Northern media conducted what was plainly a campaign of agitation propaganda against the South, and history shows that, at the time, the Southern states had nothing with which to counter such a Northern propaganda blitz. Furthermore, many Southerners did not even think this specious propaganda was worth replying to, so they just ignored it. They shouldn’t have. Again, this attitude gave the Leftists the complete playing field, with almost no opposition whatever.

In passing, I will remind folks that the New York Tribune was owned by utopian socialist Horace Greeley, the same Horace Greeley that employed Charles Dana and Karl Marx. Does that tell you anything? You can read about some of this in Lincoln’s Marxists the book co-authored by Donnie Kennedy and myself. Don’t look for too many of the professional “historians” to tell you all that much about it.

Not only that, there were many more newspapers in the North than in the South. In a book entitled The North and the South–Being a Statistical View of the Condition of the Free and Slave States (originally published in 1857 by John P. Jewett and Company, Boston, and Henry P. B. Jewett, Cleveland) many observations were made as to the power of the press in both Northern and Southern states. It is stated on page 112 of the book that: “In 1828 the number of papers at the North was to that at the South as 3 to 1; and in 1840 as 2 1/2 to one…in 1850 the number of papers at the South was 704; at the North 1799; while the circulation at the South was 782,453, and at the North 4,296,768; or over five at the North to one at the South…” So the abolitionists and their radical socialist comrades had a whopping numerical advantage. For some reason, as stated previously, those that took a constitutional, states’ rights position seemed almost reluctant to reply to the Yankee/Marxists. Their position deserved a fair hearing, which it never got outside of the South.

In our day, Herbert Philbrick, in his book I Let Three Lives traced the use of agitation propaganda by the Communists in this country when he infiltrated the Communist Party USA for the FBI. That would never happen nowadays! Philbrick wrote: “Secret underground presses are a vital adjunct to the Communist Party in every non-Communist nation, including the United States. Propaganda and deception are the keystones on which the movement to subvert a people and their government must be built. Communications and agitation by means of the printed word, through pamphlets, magazines, leaflets, and newspapers are essential to the structure.” 

Philbrick pointed out a situation that has not changed since before the French Revolution, and one that continues right up to our day–and now you can add the Internet into the mix. Radical left-wingers, whether in the streets, on Wall Street, in our public education system, or in the halls of Congress,make much use of the media for their own purposes, and haplessly, the media seem all too willing to go along with it, as it works toward the One World goal of tearing down this country and its culture, which is a main part of their agenda along with the destruction of Christianity.

Lots of uninformed folks will say “This is America, that can’t happen here.” To which I would reply–what are you willing to do to make sure it doesn’t happen here?

From the Tower of Babel to “Critical Theory” It’s All the Same Game

by Al Benson Jr.

As we sit here amid the ruins of the sixth year of the reign of King Barack the First, it might serve us well if we remind ourselves that all of man’s activities, for good or ill, are ultimately religious in nature. Christian philosopher R. J. Rushdoony, when he was alive, reminded us of the truth posited by Cornelius Van Til that “Culture is religion externalized.” In other words, show me what your culture reflects and I will show you what your religion really is. That fact should give Christians and other patriotic people in our day some grave cause for concern.

As I have written in the past, and probably will again, I have observed, sometimes with alarm, at the growing vehemence  of the concerted attack upon all things Southern and Confederate in recent decades. It started noticeably with the birth of the so-called “Civil Rights Movement” and has been metastasizing at a remarkable rate ever since.  Southern flags and symbols have been roundly attacked in all parts of the South as well as various other parts of the country. I’d have expected a certain amount of this in the North because most folks there do not know or understand Southern history and their public school books were not about to enlighten them. But it has gone on in the South to an alarming rate and many folks down here couldn’t care less. When I first came South in the late 1950s and early 1960s such would not have happened to any extent. The attacks on Southern culture would not have been tolerated, now they are.

The leftist radicals, those minions of insidious Political Correctness, (Cultural Marxism) have been trying to wipe the slate clean regarding the memory of anything Southern or Confederate, with the exception of slavery (which was not only Southern but Northern as well). That’s the one thing they want to preserve the memory of so they can find creative new ways to cash in on it politically and financially, while having an excuse to do away with all the rest.

Many sincere folks have fought back against this rising tide with the “Heritage not Hate” campaigns regarding their flags and symbols. While we have to applaud their efforts, we also need to look more in depth at what is really going on. Why the war against Southern symbols, and why is it waged with such ferocity?  We must start to realize that this war is part of the Marxist “Critical Theory” agenda which basically aims at tearing down all of Western civilization and culture, but it’s main target is the Christian faith.

Years ago, in Frontpage Magazine there was an article by author Lowell Ponte, who noted that: “Symbols are key battlefields where the Culture War is being fought…The Confederate flag must disappear, as the Left openly says, because it is a ‘rebel’ flag, a symbol of people rising up against the authority of central government.”  Resistance to central government is heresy to the religion of Marxism. And Mr. Ponte continued: “This flag must be pulled down, the Left will soon demand, not only because it symbolizes a politically incorrect history that must, in Orwellian fashion, be re-written–but also because the Confederate flag is religious.” Now, we have finally cut to the chase!

Dr. Cecil Williamson, Pastor of Crescent Hill Presbyterian Church in Selma, Alabama, several years ago wrote: “The reasons they hate our Southern culture are the very reasons we should vigorously support and defend it. And it is simply this:  Southern culture–particularly antebellum Southern culture–was primarily Christian, primarily Western European, and primarily family-oriented. The South and our heritage are maligned today because the South is the only part of the country that has not wholeheartedly embraced the anti-Christian biases, the anti-Western-Civilization mentality, and the anti-family philosophy which have saturated our culture.” All of these things are part and parcel of the Marxist “Critical Theory” campaign to tear down both our faith and culture. Dr. Williamson noted how the South cleaved to the orthodox Christian faith in the early 1800s while the North went whoring after Unitarianism, Transcendentalism, Spiritualism, Feminism and other anti-Christian doctrines.

It is indeed too bad that Christian folk in the South cannot seem to realize that all the attacks on their symbols and heritage are really attacks on their Saviour  and their faith. Southern Christian culture and symbols need to be defended and people need to begin to realize that they are defending symbols of the Christian faith–the faith by which their culture has been widely influenced. I have noticed in the last few years that the Sons of Confederate Veterans have been trying to put up Confederate Battle Flags in some places in the South in prominent spots. Every time one of those flags goes up somewhere, the presence of that flag bears silent witness to what it really stands for, and folks, it ain’t slavery!

The Politically Correct, “Critical Theory” crowd cringes when they see more and more Confederate flags go up around the South, with more people being willing to fly them. Those adversaries of the Confederate Battle Flag and other Confederate symbols are really at war with Jesus Christ, and that is a war that, in the long run, they will not win. In that we can take comfort. 

Government Declares War On Its Own People

by Al Benson Jr.

For any who have seen the movie Gods and Generals you may remember one scene right near the beginning of the movie, where Robert E. Lee, played by Robert Duval, stated “This is the first time in history that a president has threatened to invade his own country.”  Although it was just a movie, that was a pretty accurate assessment of Lincoln’s intentions should much of the South decide to secede because it did not want to continue to pay 85% of the tariffs for the entire country.

Once the Southern states did secede, a legitimate act and not treason, contrary to what today’s “historians” tell us, Lincoln proceeded to invade the Confederate States in the most brutal manner possible.

In the process of trying to subjugate the Confederate States, the Lincoln administration and its Yankee/Marxist hoards “unofficially” declared war not only on the South but on the North as well. Most Northerners fail to realize this. The Lincoln Marxists declared war on all Northerners that did not agree with “Lincoln’s Little War.” It was much like George Bush’s statement after the rather hazy event on 911–“If you are not with us then you are with the terrorists.” Patriotism for both Lincoln and Bush consisted of showing unwavering support for whatever the regime in power planned to do. If you dared to disagree with the agenda or the methods why you just weren’t being “patriotic.” If you had clear enough vision to see major problems with Bush’s “Patriot Act” (and there were and are problems) which tore gaping holes in the Bill of Rights, then by Bush’s definition, you were “with the terrorists.”  In other words, keep your mouth shut! Standing up for your God-given rights now became treason. Same situation with Comrade Abe. If you dared to speak against his “little war” it could get you some time in a Yankee/Marxist prison somewhere. If you were a clergyman or a newspaper editor who didn’t support Lincoln’s invasion of the South, and said as much, then, at some point, you were probably going to end up as chopped liver for some prison camp–and even if you didn’t say anything but someone reported that you had, it was all the same. No corroborating evidence needed–just arrest the bum!

Given this situation do you wonder why the North had so many Copperheads? Many of these folks, to one degree or another, realized what Comrade Lincoln and his Marxist buddies were all about and they wanted no part of it.

They thought they had a God-given right to their liberties and their right to speak up for what they believed was the truth. The Lincoln administration went into overdrive to disabuse them of that fallacy.

If George Orwell had wanted to, he could have written a book about real civil liberties abuses in this country during the War of Northern Aggression and he could have called the book 1864. He wouldn’t have had to change the story line of his book all that much, just the names and dates and he could have changed the last line of the story to “He loved the Great Emancipator!”

The definition of patriotism in this country since 1861 has been “Unwavering support for whatever the regime in power does, even if they are in the process of taking your freedoms away.” You are supposed to demonstrate your “patriotism” by supporting the loss of your liberties–all the time thanking your national secular “saviors” for their efforts to protect you and keep you safe–the “safety” of the federal prison or the FEMA “re-education” camp. You are supposed to love Big Brother for all of this and if you don’t then you are just an ungrateful wretch, and guilty of treason because you don’t. Treason has been redefined as “anything the federal government disapproves of.” Oh, they won’t come right out and say it that way–but their actions speak louder than their silence.

Lincoln set the precedent, and most of the rest have followed it–although some might say that the precedent was really set with the Alien and Sedition Acts back when John Adams was still president. And those taking that position might have a point. If that is truly the case, then our problems in this country started lots earlier than most even want to think about. Interestingly enough, the Constitution, for all the vaunted checks and balances, does not seem to have protected us much from most of what has followed. But you can, at least, trace significantly the decline of liberty from the Lincoln administration right down to the Marxist regime we are currently saddled with. I have often said–if you hadn’t had Lincoln you wouldn’t have Obama. I still think that’s valid.

Lincoln and Edwin Stanton probably jousted with one another over who was going to be the dictator de jour, and those who have read their history realize that this question was decided at Ford’s Theater on one April night in 1865–or as one wag put it–“Aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”

Our current Commissar doesn’t have any visible competition at this point and so as long as he continues his efforts at remaking the US into a third world banana republic , per the instructions of his handlers behind the scenes, he will remain in power, no matter how egregious his offenses. What he ludicrously refer to as the “news” media will continue to run interference for him unless told not to.

His only problem might be if he, like Richard Nixon before Watergate, gets to thinking that he is actually a real president and not just a mouthpiece. Nixon had that problem and was “Watergated” because of it. So far our present commissar has kept himself out of that kind of difficulty–so far.

However, let us not kid outselves. Some historians have labeled the time after the War of Northern Aggression and “reconstruction” as “Post-America.”  In other words, what constituted the real America was gone by that point, and if that be true, then none of us alive today has ever lived in the real America because it has not existed in our lifetime. We have lived in a pseudo-America and been forced to participate in the farce. So, North and South, and even East and West, we must begin to rethink where we have come from and realize where we really are, and realize that we have ever only existed in a parody of the real America.

We have a long way to go to get back to the real thing, if we ever do, and without the Lord’s help and guidance we will never make it.

We will never truly understand our history until we grasp the fact that Lincoln made war on his own people, North and South, and today the Obama regime is still making war on the American people. All his support goes to those that are trying to tear this country down. The story is there for those who have eyes to see.

More Home Schoolers Because of “Commie Core”

by Al Benson Jr.

Just this morning someone sent me an article from the Charlotte Observer in Charlotte, North Carolina, http://media.charlotteobserver.com  about the recent rise in home schooling in the state of North Carolina.

The article noted: “North Carolina’s home schools are growing at a record rate and are now estimated to have more students  than the state’s private schools. New figures from the state show there were 60,950 home schools in the 2013-14 school year, a 14.3 percent increase from the prior year and a 27 percent increase from two years ago. The state estimates there are 98,172 home-schoolers, marking the first time that North Carolina’s home school enrollment surpassed the number in private schools.”

Kevin McClain, president of North Carolinians For Home Education, which is a state-wide support group for home schoolers stated: “You can send your child to a private school–which is really expensive–or you can home-school. The economy means that, for many people, you home-school.” My wife and I can identify with that. When we could no longer afford to send our kids (now grown) to a Christian school, then we started to home school them. That was the only other option open to us. Sending them to the local government school was never an option because we knew the real history of the public school system, and no way were our kids going to be part of that. Thanks be to God, our six grandchildren are now being home schooled.

When home schooling first became legal in North Carolina way back in 1985 there were about 2,300 home schooled students in that state, so you can see how the movement has grown in the last twenty five-plus years. 

And the Charlotte Observer article observed that: “The recent growth spurt has coincided with the use of the Common Core standards in math and language arts in North Carolina’s public schools. While hailed by supporters in more than 40 states as providing a more rigorous education, critics have charged that Common Core is not appropriate for some students. ‘Common Core is a big factor that I hear people talk about’ said Beth Herbert, founder of Lighthouse Christian Homeschool Association, which has around 350 families, largely in the northern Wake County area. ‘They’re not happy with the work their kids are coming home with. They’ve decided to take their children home’.” In July the North Carolina General Assembly passed legislation to create a commission that would recommend standards that would replace Common Core, or “Commie Core” as those who had studied this program now refer to it. All I can say is good for North Carolina!

Those who have studied the educational process now going on in this country, if such it can still be called, have come to realize that this whole Common Core program is nothing more than the educational arm of the Marxist Critical Theory agenda. On the 8th of August I did an article dealing with this for this blog spot. Go back and check it out.

It seems that the Critical Theory problems with Common Core have finally gotten some people to sit up and take notice of what is going on in public schools. This Marxist project won’t wake everybody up–there are some folks that will never wake up to what goes on in public schools–but more and more are beginning to see that these indoctrination centers we call schools have some real problems and that the result of those problems will be dumped on their kids if they leave them in those institutions.

Over the years I have advocated, for Southern folks, that they best thing they can do for their kids is to secede from the public school system. That would be one small step, but a major one, that people could start to take in the process of Cultural Secession. Lots of people today claim they have no confidence in the government anymore. If that is true, then why do they still have confidence in the government’s schools? The “educational” arm of the government is just as corrupt as the rest of it, and we are naive if we think any differently.

Critical Theory, Cultural Marxism, and Commie Core

by Al Benson Jr.

Recently I read an informative article on http://www.discoverthenetworks.org  which dealt with Cultural Marxism and how it manifests itself as Political Correctness. The article noted how people often poke fun at Political Correctness, and we see so very much of it in our day that we are often tempted to make light of it as though it were nothing more than a mere annoyance. The article noted, however, that “…Political Correctness is deadly serious in its aims, seeking to impose a uniformity of thought and behavior on all Americans. It is therefore totalitarian in nature.” It is rooted in kind of an “alternative” brand of Marxism that doesn’t dwell on the state of the economy as much as it does on the state of the culture. And although it doesn’t, that should concern us.

Among the biggest contributors to this new abomination, (not that the old brand of Marxism was any better), have been Antonio Gramsci and Georg Lukacs.  Gramsci’s “new Communist man had to be created via a changed culture,  and the culture had to be changed before political revolution was possible.” Lukacs believed that not only must the old culture be changed, it must be destroyed. Lukacs said: “I saw the revolutionary destruction of society as the one and only solution to the cultural contradictions of the epoch…Such a worldwide overturning of values cannot take place without the annihilation of the old values  and the creation of new ones by the revolutionaries.” It seems, in one sense, that these Marxist revolutionaries are little more than political busybodies. Who asked them to go about changing the culture?

The Frankfurt School, about which I have written previously,  was a group of mostly German Marxists who came to this country when Hitler took over in Germany. Their concept of totalitarianism didn’t agree with his. Interestingly enough, they were welcomed with open arms at Columbia University, where they began to work eagerly at the destruction of American culture, and particularly Christian culture. What does that tell you about Columbia University? The Frankfurt School is no longer officially in existence now, but those who have been bred and taught with that mindset and worldview are still laboring at the overthrow of American culture. They are close enough to their goal now that they can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The article from http://www.discoverthenetworks.org  that I’ve been quoting from has observed: “The Frankfurt School’s studies combined Marxist analysis with Freudian psychoanalysis to form the basis of what became known as ‘Critical Theory.’ Critical Theory was essentially destructive criticism of the main elements of Western culture, including Christianity, capitalism, authority, the family, patriarchy,…morality, tradition, sexual restraint, loyalty, patriotism, nationalism, heredity…” They didn’t specifically mention education, but if you understand the Marxist mindset you know that has to be a major part of it.

Part of the destruction of any culture is the destruction of standards of any kind and the truth by which those standards are revealed. I just read a post on the Freedom Outpost web site. It was posted on August 5th and the headline for it was: “Common Core Standards: 3×4=11 Is Ok As long as you can explain why.” The article stated: “Seriously, I could not believe that a grown woman was shoveling this stuff, but lo and behold, watch a Common Core promoter actually say that it’s fine that children think that 3×4=11. She just wants to know if they can reason and explain how they came to the answer! In other words, there are no right answers in Common Core. Apparently there will be no logic or reasoning in Common Core either. They just want you to be a dumb, useful idiot. If this is going on in math, what do you think would happen if, say a kid claimed that Bill Clinton was the first president of the United States?”

There was a video presentation with this post and the lady that was “shoveling” out this mathematical bovine fertilizer said: “But even under the new common core even if they said 3×4=11, if they were able to explain their reasoning and explain how they came up with their answer. Really in words and in oral explanation and they showed it in a picture but they got the final answer wrong. We’re more focused on the how and the why.” In other words, its perfectly okay for kids to come up with the wrong answer if they can just explain how they got that wrong answer. Interestingly enough, this “event” occurred in District 46, in Grayslake, Illinois on July 17th. Are you really surprised? The writer of this article states that this is the kind of nonsense you get when the feds get involved in education. On that point I can agree with him. But then he goes on to state that the states really need to put the feds in their place and to resume the powers the feds were not given in the Constitution. In principle he’s right, except, in all actuality, not even the state, let alone the feds, should be involved in education. That is a parental function–not a state function, not even a local government function. A major part of our problem in this country is that we don’t know our history well enough to grasp what governments at various levels should and should not be doing. And education is one of those things they shouldn’t be doing–at any level!

Awhile back, New York State Education Commisar (excuse me I should have said Commissioner) John King  gave a speech about education and “civil rights.” According to King, opposing Common Core is “racist.” Ah, there’s that old race card being played yet another time–if you didn’t vote for Obama you’re a racist; if you are opposed to illegal aliens swamping our Southern border, you must be a racist; if you are opposed to Common Core in education you must be a racist.  Opposition to Common Core has now become part of the “racist” guilt trip the system attempts to lay on common folks to shut them up–only it’s not working quite as well anymore. People are starting to wake up and refusing to shut up, and that’s good.

King went on to loftily note that “Common Core educational standards are an attempt to close the achievement gap between minority and low income students relative to their peers. He urges parents and educators not to back off from their commitment to Common Core.” This from an article in the Times Union  http://www.timesunion.com  And he’s right about Common Core–it will bridge the gap between minority and low income students and others by working to make sure they are all equally dumbed down, so no one, no matter how intelligent, knows much of anything. Can you honestly picture an educational system that doesn’t care whether the kids get the right answers in math or not as long as they can explain their wrong answer, doing anything to improve the educational standards for anyone? It’s all just more bovine fertilizer and it’s being shoved down people’s throats with an earth mover!

Back in October of 2013 there was an article on TNReport by the Tennessee Republican Assembly which called on legislators to oppose “Commie Core.” And that’s what the article called it. In part, the article said: “We are already seeing the negative effects of Common Core Federal Mandates in our schools, and now we will have thinly veiled socialist and communist agendas promoted with Tennessee tax dollars.” This according to Sharon Ford, President of the Tennessee Republican Assembly. She noted an expenditure of $700,000 in “Race to the top” money that was spent to send 18 elementary, junior high, and high school principals to Red China so they could learn how to teach “the Chinese way.” Ford, with some perception, said “China is neither as diverse or as open to creativity and free speech as the U.S. It is not a system we should replicate in Tennessee. And some people wonder why Common Core is called Commie Core.”

Common Core is part of the agenda to destroy educational standards and to force all students in the country to eventually become part of it, one way or another. It is, therefore, the Marxist Critical Theory program being used to destroy any remaining standards in American education.

Any school system anywhere in the country where people have finally figured out what Common Core is really all about and they want to opt out of it should be encouraged and supported if they make that effort. Otherwise the kids entrusted to their care become victims of the Marxist Critical Theory  technique where all real educational standards are eventually erased.  The Marxists, whether they call themselves that or not, have nothing less in mind than the total destruction of any remaining Christian culture we still possess and if they can accomplish that end while brainwashing our kids by removing and real educational standards, they will do so in a heart beat.

Thought US “History” in Public School Couldn’t Get Any Worse? Guess Again

by Al Benson Jr.

Public schools around the country will be reopening later this month for another yearly go at the three B’s–Brainwashing, Baloney, and Buffoonery. Only this year it might even be worse than before, and Heaven only knows, it’s been bad before.

World Net Daily had an article up recently by John Aman dealing with the brainwashing part of this called U.S. History Takes a Drastic Left Turn This Fall.  The article started off with: “High school history teachers nationwide will give their top students a dark retelling of U.S. history this fall, courtesy of the College Board, a nonprofit readiness firm led by Common Core architect David Coleman. The College Board–which administers AP (advanced placement) courses and tests–is rolling out a revised curriculum framework for AP U.S. history, offering the 450,000 students who take AP U.S. history classes a hero-free account of America’s deeply stained past.” The fact that someone affiliated with Common Core is involved with this should tell you where it’s going right off the bat.

The article continued: “Conservative author Stanley Kurtz asserts the College Board is ‘pushing U.S. history as far to the left as it can get away with at the high school level.” John Aman noted that the new “history” leaves out the Pilgrims, John Winthrop, (probably Jamestown, Virginia), Madison, Jefferson, Franklin, and a host of others. The new “history” paints European settlers all as villains who “disrupted ecologically balanced native American society, bringing ‘widespread deadly epidemics,’ a ‘caste system,’ resource exploitation and slavery’…” There’s a grain of truth there, but only a grain, and some of it is downright horse puckey. The American Indians did not have a totally balanced ecological system, there were abuses in some of what they did, it’s just that there were not as many of them so as to make it all that noticeable. As far as Europeans “introducing” slavery into the Americas, some of the Indians already had slaves–other Indians they had captured or stolen from other tribes. The American Indians were no strangers to slavery. And as far as preserving the ecology, some tribes in the West used to run herds of buffalo over cliffs when hunting, and they could never use all the meat they killed that way so they took what they wanted and left the rest to rot.

Aman observed: “Larry Krieger, who has taught U.S. history for 35 years and written numerous widely popular AP and SAT exam prep books, said he reacted with shock and dismay when he read the framework earlier this year.” Krieger said: “It’s relentless left-wing indoctrination, antithetical to everything I believe about teaching and our country’s history…Leaving aside its very leftist bias, it is a very poorly written, unprofessional document…boring and dispiriting.”

And Aman also duly informed us that: “It’s also an anonymous document.  While the College Board convened two committees composed of 27 college professors and teachers to oversee the new curriculum, the actual author or authors and the process used to produce it are unknown.”

So this thing is going to be used for advanced history students in public high schools and we don’t even know who wrote it! Doesn’t that seem a little strange? Nothing to see here folks, just move along! Larry Krieger stated, quite accurately: “When they hired David Coleman, the chief architect of Common Core, they effectively politicized the College Board. The first thing he did was to yoke the SAT to Common Core, and now we’re going to apply Common Core principles to AP courses.” You folks whose kids are going to take SAT tests had better take note of that. If your kids have not yet experienced Common Core (sometimes referred to as Commie Core), they may not do real well on the new SAT tests. Common Core is nothing more than a project to totally standardize all education to fit a government standard, and I mean ALL education. In the end it will affect home schoolers, kids in Christian schools and all others. Unless parents can get their states to renounce this program of total government control of education their kids will be stuck with it forever.

The current Marxist administration, as well as past administrations and future ones, wants to totally control all aspects of our lives and education is one of the biggest of those aspects. If your kids don’t think along the lines the ruling elite desire for them, they might ask embarrassing questions, might even question the right of “authority” to do certain things. Might even become “low-level terrorists” who are guilty of “thought crime.” However, if you are willing to sign on with Commie Core, excuse me, I should have said Common Core, why all that can be avoided and your kids can be educated to become docile little servants of the World System.

If you want to find out just what Common Core and related federal education programs are all about I would recommend a DVD put out by the John Birch Society called “Common Core.” It’s 70 minues long but it’s worth watching if you want to begin to grasp what does on in public schools and what they have in mind to do to your kids. The Birch Society can be contacted at 800-342-6491. 

Public “education” in this country as always been leftist and anti-Christian. This is nothing new, but the leftists have now reached a point where they feel they can totally rewrite the history and most of America’s parents won’t know the difference. Over the past 3 years I have had numerous articles on this blog spot that dealt with the continuing leftist slant to public education. And lots of other folks have dealt with it too, not just me. For those that don’t care one way or the other, just go ahead and ignore it all–and lose your kids in the process–but don’t ever come back and say “Why didn’t someone tell us?”

Was the NRA Formed to Arm Ex-Slaves? Not Really

by Al Benson Jr.

Let me start off by stating that I am not the NRA’s biggest fan. When it comes to Second Amendment groups I think the Gun Owners of America takes a much firmer stand and gives you more bang for your buck. If that bothers some folks I’d suggest that they check out the Gun Owners of America and see why I feel that way.

Having said that, this is written to attempt to clear up some misconceptions about the reasons for the founding of the NRA that seem to be floating around out there and that some folks might be tempted to swallow, thus choking of what is supposed to be truth but is really clever propaganda.

I got a phone call this afternoon (August 1) from a friend in Oklahoma who told me he had heard something on a conservative radio show that really bugged him. What he heard was that the National Rifle Association had been formed by “religious leaders who wanted to protect ex-slaves from the Ku Klux Klan.” My first thought was that this is “beyond ridiculous.”

There was some commentary, back in 2008, by a Harry Alford, whose wife, Kay DeBow Alford, was the National Black Chamber of Commerce executive vice-president. Alford, who spoke in Milwaukee in 2008 said: ” I want to thank the Lord for our Constitution. I also want to thank the NRA for its legacy. The National Rifle Association was started, founded by religious leaders who wanted to protect freed slaves from the Ku Klux Klan.” Interestingly enough, the NRA’s website says nothing about any of this.

The NRA’s website says the following: “Dismayed by the lack of marksmanship shown by their troops,  Union veterans Col. William C. Church and Gen. George Wingate formed the National Rifle Association in 1871. The primary goal of the association would be to ‘promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis,’ according to a magazine editorial written by Church.”  This was published on http://www.politifacts.com  on June 5, 2013.

Other information given about the founding showed that former Union Army General Ambrose P. Burnside, the “hero” of Fredericksburg, was the first president of the NRA.  Burnside had worked as a gunsmith in Rhode Island and so was a logical choice for the first president. Church succeeded Burnside as president the following year. And Burnside had a legitimate interest in being part of such a group.

Union Army records indicated that Union troops  fired around 1,000 rifle shots for each Confederate soldier they hit. This fact caused Burnside to complain about his recruits during the War. He reportedly said: “Out of ten soldiers who are perfect in drill and the manuel of arms, only one knows the purpose of the sights on his gun or can hit the broadside of a barn.” So Burnside had a bonifide  concern about the marksmanship of soldiers. Some generals attributed the terrible marksmanship of Union soldiers to the use of “volley tactics” for earlier and less accurate smooth bore muskets. As the War progressed rifled muskets became more the order of the day. And so the NRA’s primary goal was to “promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis.”

However, conservatives, in many cases, seem to have a bent towards picking up what we would commonly call propaganda. David Barton, in an interview on the Glenn Beck Show, was guilty of promoting the fable that the NRA was started as a means of “…driving out he Ku Klux Klan and ensuring that blacks…could in fact locally carry a gun.” Since the NRA was originally chartered in New York state, I have to wonder what Klan groups they were driving out there.

There seems to be some of this, what shall I call it–balderdash–that blacks were much better treated in the North than they were in the South. In all honesty, racial attitudes pertaining to blacks were every bit as biased in the North as they were in the South and at that point in time, I can’t picture whites in New York being any happier with blacks carrying guns than whites in South Carolina would have been. In fact, many of the black “militias” in the South during what we euphemistically refer to as “reconstruction” were a major problem because they were a threat to white people, women and kids as well as men. Part of this was the original reason something like the Ku Klux Klan came into being in the first place. I realize a lot of people don’t want to hear that, but get a copy of Claude Bowers book The Tragic Era  and check out what some of the black militias in various Southern states were doing. It ain’t pretty.

Yet, for all of that, this was not the reason the NRA was formed. As far as our situation today, do I think black people should be able to have guns to protect their families and property? Why not? They should be able to protect their lives and property just like anyone else. When it comes to honest, hardworking people, the Second Amendment is truly colorblind. Everyone should have the right to defend what is theirs and those they love. It’s interesting that the gun control advocates seem to expend lots of energy trying to make some of the big cities into basically “gun free” zones when the majority of the population in those cities is black. Are they really working in the interest of black people? Not hardly–but they pretend they are.

All I’m saying is that, if we are going to talk about the NRA, then let’s get the history straight and not spread a lot of “feel good” fables. We have a saying in Southern and conservative circles–“you can’t make this stuff up.” Unfortunately, some are trying.