but more needs to be done; or undone.

As a new school year begins, I am asking myself some questions.  For instance, what will I be told to teach this year?  Will I be allowed to teach my students how to think for themselves? Absolutely not! In fact, I am not allowed to voice my own opinion and have been accused of being divisive when I have done so.   Last year was a total failure for me and, sadly, my students as I was instructed to teach to the test, and only teach to the test. Parents beware: the goal of public education is about conditioning and training up little socialists.    

In Florida, Marco Rubio voted “Yes” on HB7145, the Private School Scholarship Program Expansion Act.  That’s a good start, but I wonder if he realizes just how harmful NCLB, which is also called Outcome Based Education (OBE) or Mastery Learning, is for our kids, families and country.   According to Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, Education Policy Advisor to President Reagan, and author of “the deliberate dumbing down of america” (1999), OBE discourages competition and insists that all children learn the same thing, encourages cooperative-individualism (huh?) and is opposed to “selfish” competition.  In addition, according to this philosophy, what is important is not what you know, but what you can do, like take a test. During a telephone interview in January 2009, a caller asked what parents can do at the local level to change or influence what is taught in their children’s schools.  Iserbyt simply said: “There’s nothing they can do because the federal government funds public education.”   When did this dumbing down start?  In 1965 (ahh, those wonderful sixties) with the implementation of Title I and special education programs in Inner City schools. 

In colleges of education around the country, teachers-in-training are taught Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956) like seminary students are taught the Bible.  For those of you who don’t know, these are classifications of intellectual behavior important in learning [emphasis added]. Bloom’s philosophy said that the purpose of education is to change the thoughts, actions, and feelings of students, [and that] good teaching [involves] challenging the students’ fixed beliefs.  He made the claim that he could take a student from one position on an issue, like anti-abortion, for instance, to believing that abortion was okay in just one hour by structuring a series of questions in such a way that he led the student to the “correct” answer.

B. F. Skinner, 1904-1990 is another scary fellow whose influence on public education is devastating to those of us who love kids.  Skinner’s philosophies regarding how to educate children are based on animal training and conditioning techniques.  Let’s just condition the little darlings to see things our way.

Those of you who home school aren’t left out of the socialist mix.  Many virtual school programs, as well as curriculums designed for home-school, use materials based in these philosophies and whose sole purpose is to condition student thinking. Do your research! Conservatives who love their kids and their country need to get out their proverbial shovels and start digging to see what lies under the surface.Find out where your candidates stand on education issues.  Liberal universities aren’t going to stop conditioning education students to condition their students.  New teachers today have already gone through the conditioning process and are ignorantly passing it on to your children.  Kids in school today are leaders of tomorrow.  They are being trained to be socialists from kindergarten through college graduation. 

These days the great debates on immigration, health care, and tax increases are important and necessary, but I also want to hear a candidate say: “I want schools to teach children to think for themselves!”  “I want my kid to graduate high school able to read!”  “I want my child to think critically and (respectfully) challenge authority!”  I haven’t heard it yet, but I’m listening.

So, what will I do this year?  I made a decision.  I will be a rebel, though I may stand alone.  I’m going to teach my kids to read, write, think critically, respectfully challenge me, and succeed individually. 

Whatever will my boss do with the likes of me?

Since before the ’08 election, I have had a nagging feeling.  In fact, the first time I saw the Rock Star on television, this feeling was overwhelming.  Obama is only a front man.  Yes, he is a Progressive Destroyer, but I don’t think he is the One in charge.  There is a Master behind the scenes and only a very select few even know who he is.  Let’s look at the whole picture for a moment, shall we?

Where did The One come from?  Obscurity.  How many people had ever even heard of BHO before the “marketing” began?  I would hazard a guess and say that very few people across the country even knew of his existence.  Suddenly, with the blare of the proverbial trumpet and in a blaze of glory, The One was “born” for lack of a better word.  Out of nowhere our savior appeared on the scene in an expensive black suit, smiling with professionally whitened teeth and walking with the swagger of the totally “cool.” 

In a flurry of flashy television ads, msm flashbulbs, and rock music the new star reached out to the young and impressionable from huge stages with booming sound systems.  He even had popular opening acts that would appeal to the 18-24-year-old demographic at his events.  When was the last time a presidential candidate did that with such fury and flare?  Think about it…the young are great in number, energetic, and impulsive.  Someone who knows about marketing would take that into consideration, wouldn’t they?   That’s how jeans companies can get kids to pay $200 for a pair of pants full of holes.  The One isn’t in advertising; he’s a lawyer and a senator.  He isn’t even really a senator, considering how few days he was actually in office.  He’s a lawyer with a history as a community organizer and an ACORN advocate.  That he even had ambition to run for president is questionable.  This was somebody else’s idea.  The One isn’t in control…he is under control.

He has proven himself incompetent as the leader of a country.  When decisions are left to him, he totally fails; he is cluless.  Look at the oil spill crisis.  Good grief!  The entire country is looking to him to be the savior again, and he can’t even see fit to give Bobby Jindal permission to fight the onslaught of oil creeping into the wetlands.  A study has to be conducted first?  When I think about it I could have a stroke.  And, let’s not even get started on the Joker, err Commander, in Chief part of his job.  My husband, a Vietnam vet, has a fit every time he sees him salute.  It’s more like a flip-off.  In the meantime, he’s holding hands with dictators and bowing to oil lords while cutting defense spending and turning his back on Israel. 

The world laughs and shakes their heads at the once strong country we love dearly.  Iran thumbs its nose at us like they always have, but now they are really running with the ball because there is no threat.  Europe is watching, mouths gaping, as our economy follows their already failed path to destruction as our leaders ignore the facts.  Our president is weak and it is intentional and calculated.  Someone else is pulling the strings; perhaps he realizes it, perhaps not.  He might believe the lie about himself, or maybe he is just waiting for the pay-off at the end.  After all, he has been very up front about the fact that he is fine with being a one-term president if he can get the agenda accomplished.  It is also evident that he cares nothing about his “party,” as he encourages the majority to do his bidding even if it means they lose their jobs.  Many dems are getting nervous now.  Some, I think, are realizing that they have been hung out to dry and that perhaps they have hitched their horse to the wrong bandwagon, too late.  As a conservative, I can smile about that…a little. 

Overall, I’m sad about all of it.   Even more, I’m curious as to just Who is really calling the shots.  Again, I will hazard a guess and say that Pelosi knows; it would explain her absolute giddiness since Obama came to “power.” (I’m not certain, however, that she would even share that information with Dirty Harry; I think she’s too selfish.)   I don’t think the union leaders know, but they are enjoying the ride.  Who is it?  I feel confident in saying that it is someone we would never even consider.  It is someone who is not flashy or cool.  It is, however, someone very dangerous, powerful and intent on destroying us.  We need to look behind the curtain, every curtain, and see who is flipping the levers and running the smoke machine.

(In my very humble opinion, if you are a Christian you might recognize what and who Obama just may be…The Usher in Chief.)

While watching the 1996 movie, “Star Trek: First Contact” (stop smirking and keep reading.  There really is a political connection), I was struck by something interesting.  The similarities between The Borg and Progressives are astounding.  For those of you who are not familiar with the part human, part machine characters, let me explain:  The Borg are/is one entity made up of many parts.  The Head of this entity is, quite literally, a head.  She has no body and must insert her head and shoulders into a body in order to walk around, though why she feels the need to walk is confusing since she can simply float around her ship/world, but, hey, it’s Star Trek and mine is not to question why, mine is to eat ice cream and laugh.  But, I digress.  The Borg have a philosophy:

“The philosophy of the Borg Collective can be summarized as a determination to use any methods necessary in order to pursue a perceived state of perfection. Toward this end, the Borg, originating as wholly organic lifeforms, augment themselves, beginning just after birth, with synthetic systems and organs, allowing them to achieve heights of physical and intellectual capacity undreamt of by most purely biological species. Assimilation, occasionally of individuals but regularly on a mass scale, of other lifeforms whose physiologically and technologically distinct advantages they deem remarkable, is undertaken in order to acquire those traits and distribute them to all throughout the Collective. In so doing, the Borg seek to bring both themselves and those assimilated closer to perfection” [emphasis added] (retrieved June 26, 2010 from http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Borg_philosophy).

Quite early on in the film, Jean Luc Picard, the Enterprise’s illustrious captain, who, by the way, was well on his way to being assimilated into the Collective six years earlier, tells a woman from the past, who is totally confused as to just how she got on this guy’s spaceship, that our society no longer has any use for money; the focus now is all about working for the good of mankind as a way to better ourselves.  He didn’t seem to be bothered by that; it is interesting, however, that Picard himself didn’t want to be assimilated into the collective and thought it was something to be destroyed. Assimilation for the big-shot captain, bad; bettering society by doing away with making money, good.  Hmm.

There is something very frightening about these fictional characters.  In addition to the fact that the people assimilated into The Borg Collective have no choice in the matter, they also have no individuality.  The Borg, led by the floating Head, take the part of the human that makes him or her unique, their thoughts, sight, motivation, etc. and replace it with something mechanical and uniform.  There is no solitary thought; they are literally of one mind.  There is no opportunity for pursuit of anything other than assimilation of anyone they come across.  The goal is to make One.  Sound familiar? 

Progressives love the idea of One, don’t they?  The Ones in Power want to be the floating heads in charge while we underlings do their bidding.  The successful and wealthy Capitalists must spread their money around and support those who don’t/won’t work as a way to better themselves and society.  But don’t ask Nancy Pelosi to give up her fancy office or the private jet.  After all, how would that benefit society’s underlings?  Obama, the head floating Head, and his regime want to take what is, has been, unique about America and replace it with something else; something “mechanical” and uniform…something worse.  The goal is to assimilate America into the world of socialism/communism/whateverism.  The goal is…The Borg Collective.  Creepy.