BATTLING FOR AMERICA'S SOUL

 

[Published in the Sunday Guardian of India]

President Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) Movement are moving at lightning speed on a broad front to restore governmental integrity and restore American culture.

His revolutionary change agents are now confirmed and taking the helms in their respective agencies.  Along with legions of capable operatives, they are reversing decades of Leftist policies and eliminating large numbers of those loyal to the endless expansion of government.

Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are exposing billions of waste, fraud, and abuse.  Their wide-ranging audits of Executive Branch operations are well on their way to exceeding the $2 trillion budget reduction goal.

The battle over national governance is only a small part of the more fundamental battle over America’s core values and civic culture.

America is unique.  It is a country based upon ideas - not geography, language, or tribe.  Our historic sites and markers ground us in who we are, and why we are. 

America’s civic culture thrives because it has maintained a common frame of reference supporting freedom of expression, representative government, limited government, and government dispersed among states and locales – the fundamentals of a federal system and republican governance.

The resiliency and longevity of America’s civic culture is based upon its citizens learning and understanding how their government works and their role in supporting and participating in it.

America’s Constitution is about forming “a more perfect union”.  This means America is always a work in progress.  The Constitution itself is the greatest “rules of engagement” for collective action that has ever been written.  Looking beyond ourselves reaffirms our nation and our individual and collective roles in it.

A critical element is our collective memory and frames of reference.  Statues and historic sites exist to commemorate and remember, not to celebrate. Knowing and discussing our origin is fundamental to a civic culture where shared values hold us together.  Civil dialogue with those we disagree is the structure that allows our institutions, our communities, and ourselves to exist. 

America’s unique civic culture and collective identity is the antithesis to tyranny.  President Ronald Reagan referred to America’s example of freedom and representative government as “the shining light on the hill” that inspired freedom loving people worldwide.

Those promoting Communism, Fascism, and other forms of oppression have continually assailed America to neutralize challenges to their power. Internally, those wanting unbridled political power have made common cause with outside forces in their attempt to undermine America.

In 1927, Stuart Chase, one of the founding members of President Franklin Roosevelt’s (FDR) “Brain Trust”, met with Stalin and Trotsky to gain inspiration for taking over America. In his 1932 “New Deal” book Chase mused, “Why should the Russians have all the fun of remaking the world?” 

Guided by Chase’s vision, the Left set about to methodically capture and control America’s cultural levers.  Hollywood fell first. Most news media fell by the late 1960s. Print media was corrupted from the start. Pro-America outlets, like Time Magazine, succumbed as their conservative founders retired or died. Academia was conquered during the 1960s in the wake of the “free speech movement” and then the anti-Vietnam War protests.

During the 1980s, the Left targeted America’s 13,425 school districts. Leftist teachers replaced moderate pro-American teachers as they retired.  These Leftist teachers promoted revisionist history supported by new textbooks like Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States”, which became the standard high school textbook for a generation.

In some schools, world history courses narrowed to cover only events that occurred after 1200 AD. Large swarths of historical events and figures were eliminated.  The Texas State Board of Education voted to remove 450 historical figures. This included significant individuals like John Hancock. The National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that only 18 percent of High School graduates are proficient in American history.  

A parallel project was shrinking civics education to the point where only 23 percent of eighth-graders perform at or above the proficient level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) civics exam, and only 26 percent of Americans can name all three branches of government. 

The election of Barack Obama in 2008 ushered in an era of divisiveness. Obama campaigned as a proponent and symbol of racial harmony. Once elected, Obama and his Administration launched a wide range of actions to racialize America.  By the end of his eight years, racial and sexual demographics became the lens through which private and public actions were viewed. 

The era of “wokism” replaced meritocracy.  Martin Luther King’s famous quote,” one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” was completely turned upside down.  Divisiveness and “tribalism” ate away at America’s common framework and values.

An intensified phase of undermining America’s civic culture began after a 2011 Harvard Study revealed that participating in historical/patriotic celebrations promoted conservative voting patterns. The Left began to methodically demonize America’s founding narrative, encompassing events and people.

Denigrating the American Flag, removing the National Anthem, and ending 4^th of July were the Left’s trinity for destroying America’s civic culture.

Statues were removed.  Athletes “took a knee” to denigrate America’s National Anthem, a “Black National Anthem” was sung as the preferred “more inclusive” alternative.

The Left’s goal was to fundamentally shift the inspiring narrative of America’s founding in 1776 to the darker, anti-American, narrative of the 1619 movement.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, the intellectual force behind the 1619 movement, asserted the arrival of the first slaves at Jamestown was the true founding of America.  This was launched in 2019 as a counter to celebrating the 400^th Anniversary of the first democratically elected assembly in America.  Hannah-Jones barnstormed cable news asserting, “Independence Day does not mean the same thing to everybody.  We are forcing white people to confront what this holiday has meant to black people”.

On one show, Hannah-Jones’ assertion was supported by Leftist historian Jon Meacham, who reported that the July 4^th was “only about a document not about shaping a nation”.  Meacham asserted, “For generations we have looked at 1776 as our founding moment, our “nativity”, when it was actually 1619…For too long we have taught this one narrative that glorifies white supremacy, glorifies colonization.”

The Left elevated an obscure moment in America’s Civil War, “Juneteenth”, as the “more inclusive” alternative to celebrating the “white slave document” of the Declaration of Independence.

Juneteenth is based on the false narrative that slavery in America ended on June 19, 1865.  That was the day a Union General marched into Galveston, Texas and announced the Civil War was over and the slaves being held in that region were free. It took ratifying the 13^th Amendment on December 6, 1865, to officially free all of America’s slaves nationwide.  

The Left began an incessant drumbeat that America was “built by enslaved people on stolen land”. The noble narrative of a nation of immigrants thriving in freedom, commerce, and limited government, was replaced by shame.

The Left’s goal was to expand government to “right wrongs” and “make amends”. Key elements were reparations; Critical Race Theory (CRT); Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI); and Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”).

The Left’s echo chamber of controlling media, academia, entertainment, and government reached its zenith with the George Floyd riots of 2020.  Demonizing Trump and his supporters as racists, fascists, and Nazis became one of the vehicles for sweeping Joe Biden into power.  Leftist control of social media silenced dissent.  They were on the brink of totally remaking America in their image.

Then the world changed.

The Leftist agenda, to flood America with illegal immigrants, create chaos through weakening the police, and steer the justice system from going after criminals to going after Trump and his supporters ignited a massive backlash.

It became increasingly clear to a growing number of Americans, that they were being lied to by every entity they trusted. One by one, the Left’s carefully constructed reality fell apart.  Crime spiraled out of control in cities. Inflation soared. America’s weakened foreign and military policy emboldened tyrants and Americans died.

On April 14, 2022, Elon Musk purchased Twitter. Suddenly, one of the most important components of the Left’s fraudulent reality became the chief forum for exposing their lies.

President Biden’s steady mental decline became harder to hide. Trust in those who lied in order to gain, expand, and retain their power vanished. 

The 2024 election shocked the system back to reality.  The MAGA revolution and the DOGE audits gave new hope that America could be saved.

The struggle to save America is just beginning.

“We’re in the middle of a cultural revolution in America, and one of the biggest battlegrounds is the schools,” explained Moms For Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice.

There are 98,577 public schools in 13,425 school districts.  Each district is run by elected school boards where ultra-Leftist politicians dominate.  The 3,827,100 public school teachers are mostly liberal to Leftist. 94 percent of teacher union campaign funds go to Democrats.

In West Virginia, America’s most conservative Republican state, public school leaders promoted Che Guevara as their 2022 role model for Hispanic Heritage Month.

President Trump joined the battle by issuing an Executive Order on January 29, 2025, titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling”:

“In recent years, however, parents have witnessed schools indoctrinate their children in radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight.  Such an environment operates as an echo chamber, in which students are forced to accept these ideologies without question or critical examination.  In many cases, innocent children are compelled to adopt identities as either victims or oppressors solely based on their skin color and other immutable characteristics…These practices not only erode critical thinking but also sow division, confusion, and distrust, which undermine the very foundations of personal identity and family unity.

Imprinting anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false ideologies on our Nation’s children not only violates longstanding anti-discrimination civil rights law in many cases, but usurps basic parental authority…Similarly, demanding acquiescence to “White Privilege” or “unconscious bias,” actually promotes racial discrimination and undermines national unity.”

Trump’s Executive Order directs federal agencies to end funding for any activities deemed undermining America’s civic culture. It is a clear signal that the decades long battle for the soul of America is a priority. 

While Trump is waging an office-by-office struggle to gain control of the Federal Government, parents and local activists are fighting to regain America-affirming education school-by-school, and classroom-by-classroom. 

Generations of young people are adults with at best ignorance about America, or at worst, a Leftist set of assumptions about their country.

What took the Left decades to destroy, may take years to reverse. Time is short.

All the world’s freedom loving people are watching.

 

 

Fiscal Flim Flam

The following appeared in the Washington Examiner

http://washingtonexaminer.com/congress-white-house-budget-trickery-now-backfiring/article/2514965

The only way the real fiscal cliff can be addressed is for everyone in Washington, D.C., to stop talking about the fake one. Here's the reality: The bomb is about to explode in the hands of its own maker. There is no disaster looming, only one created by the same Congress and the same president who are now voicing dire warnings about sequestration. The coming demise of federal programs is a manufactured problem, designed to meet the partisan needs of each side of the current debate.

Congress and the White House assert that $1.2 trillion must be cut from the federal budget over the next 10 years. This multiyear effort commences on Jan. 1, 2013, with $50 billion in cuts from the Defense Department and $70 billion from discretionary domestic programs. Everyone in Washington, D.C., including the pundits, has been creating increasingly apocalyptic visions of what will happen should these cuts occur.

It never had to be this way. There is currently $2 trillion in unexpended balances arrayed throughout the federal government for the current fiscal year. According to both the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office, $687 billion of these balances are completely unobligated.

Again, in 2012, the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, and the 73 department and agency inspector general offices identified more than $650 billion in annual, ongoing waste. The vast majority of these findings, and the actions recommended to address them, have never been acted upon by either the executive or legislative branches.

Finally, there's the federal government's legendary and perpetually unaddressed inefficiency. Large private corporations, like Walmart, have at most five layers of management between their front line service personnel and top executives. The federal government has upwards of 23 layers.

Given these three facts, why are our political leaders saying that federal spending cannot be cut, and that they must have more of our earnings and wealth to make ends meet?

The sequestration cuts are a bogeyman, specifically designed to inflict as much damage as possible on American citizens. For example, 53 percent of the sequestration cuts within the Department of Education are within the Elementary & Secondary Education Act programs -- funds sent to states to supplement the salaries and hiring of teachers. The sequestration cuts 60.9 percent of these funds. That is why so many politicians and pundits are predicting massive teacher layoffs. Meanwhile, the sequestration targets only 4 percent of the Department of Education's headquarters budget. The bureaucrats wouldn't be missed, but they are safe. The teachers will be missed, and they are ground zero for cuts.

What should have been a serious management exercise has become a race to see who can paint the worst scenario should budget talks fail. Democrats cite the collapse of social services and education, while Republicans predict massive layoffs of defense contractors and the hollowing out of our military. Both sides predict chaos in the economy leading to a second recession.

Democrats won the election, so they are now in the best position to use this crisis that both parties manufactured. They are setting off a stampede for more tax revenue that Congress will probably just spend away anyway. Had Republicans won, they would probably be calling for ideologically focused spending cuts (like public broadcasting) to prevent the ruin of the military.

Congress and the White House designed the sequestration to wreak destruction on government services and the economy as a way to create a false sense of urgency for a substantive budget solution. Their plan, if it was a plan, has backfired.

Why Visit A Civil War Battlefield?

This article appeared on http://www.hnn.us/articles/138312.html
The audio version of this article is at http://www.wvpubcast.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=19791

April 20, 2011 · “A war was fought. The right side won. What else do we need to know?” That person’s comment was recently posted on one of my websites.

Americans have been commemorating the 150th anniversary of our Civil War since October 16, 2009. On that date in 1859, a cataclysmic event wrenched America into its bloodiest war.

John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry, was the “September 11” of the 19th Century. Commemorating the actual war began on April 12, 2011 – the sesquicentennial of the bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, South Carolina.

What should we do to remember a four-year war that ended slavery, reunited a country, but also resulted in 1,030,000 casualties (3 percent of the U.S. population), including 620,000 soldier deaths?

We have already seen its politicization by both extremes – souring general interest in the era. This proves that America’s Civil War continues to leave deep legacies, and scars, on our nation’s physical, political, and psychological landscape.

As the weather warms, why should people spend their limited recreation and reflection time visiting a Civil War battlefield?

History enthusiasts have long studied America’s Civil War. Its first battles echoed Napoleon’s wars while the last ones anticipated the bloody trench warfare of World War I. A full century of change in military technology and dogma was compressed into four years.

Those who study management have for years looked to the Civil War for timeless lessons in problem solving, planning, communication and leadership. The Civil War offers countless examples of brilliance and stupidity that provide insights into modern business, government and life.

Why should everyone else visit a battlefield?

First we as a nation, and as individual citizens, need to remember who we are and why we are. America’s Civil War was not some arm wrestling contest where the winner took all. It was a time when everyone in this nation - from founding families to new immigrants – was impacted by its violence.

Why America is what it is today was shaped more by the events of April 12, 1861 to April 9, 1865, than any other time period, including World War II. Walking on ground, that was fundamental to shaping our national identity and culture offers insights beyond any book, movie or television show.

Most Americans in 1860 had not traveled more than a day’s walk from their home. The Civil War unified our nation while it was tearing it apart. Northern and Southern soldiers, alike, saw parts of the country for the first time as well as encountered other ethnic and national groups.

Those left on the home front read and learned about new people and places more than at any time prior to the war. No other set of events moved America from a country of isolated communities into a national identity.

The events of the Civil War shaped a generation of citizens who led America into the 20th Century. Some who served in battle went onto become Presidents, Cabinet Members, Congressmen, Senators, Governors and Judges. Understanding their experiences helps us understand the political and social forces at work in America up to and beyond today.

Walking on a battlefield is a window into our past. Many battlefields have preserved the landscape and structures of an earlier era. Seeing what others before us saw is the closest we may come to a time machine. It opens our minds to why things happened and why things are happening.

Walking on a battlefield with your family offers opportunity for learning and dialogue. Young people may ask why a road, railroad, or town was located where it was. This stimulates curiosity that leads to learning. Enough experiences and questions can prepare a young mind to become an engaged and thinking adult.

Reflecting on our past and the “why” that underlies previous actions develops life skills that will well serve a person in their professional, personal, and community endeavors.

Walking on a battlefield is also about recreation and open spaces. Formal parks and sports venues cannot provide the nonlinear joy of wandering. Those of us on the East Coast do not have as many natural national and state parks as the west. Historical parks, and battlefield parks in particular, give us an opportunity to “amble”.

As John Muir once stated, “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul”.

During the next four years there will be many commemorative events designed to honor those who fought in America’s Civil War and to grapple with their complex actions and motivations. These special events will add additional activities and insights to our battlefields. Whether you plan a battlefield visit to take advantage of Sesquicentennial-themed gatherings or just go to a site that is nearby, you and your family will be richer for the experience.

[Photo by Jim Davison]

The Future of Teaching

Another school year is coming to a close. As students fan-out to playgrounds and summer jobs the perennial challenge is raised anew – where will we find enough quality teachers to meet the needs of our next academic year?

The perennial answer is “pay they enough”. But this addresses the wrong part of the challenge. For decades local school boards, and politicians at all levels, have fixated on competing for young professionals, fresh from college, to populate the classrooms of America. This keeps the teacher debate mired in a no-win proposition. Even in this stagnant economy, the public education system cannot amass enough of money to outbid the private sector for top talent.

Every top graduate, save for a dwindling number of idealists who may opt for teaching or the Peace Corps, aspires to work for the highest bidder. This is the marketplace at its most efficient. But this results in teachers being those who are not the top talent. Worse, state certification systems require public school teachers to have in depth knowledge of “teaching methods” not of a particular topic. I have watched as teachers, even private school teachers, get basic facts wrong as they present history, English, and geography to my fifteen-year-old.

The solution is to shift the marketplace. Our society is aging, but our seniors are remaining healthy and active. Public school systems need to shift their teaching requirements so that these “greybeards” can be brought into the classroom. A retired or semi-retired professional is (1) going to be attracted by far less money than a twenty-something, (2) have far more knowledge to impart than a twenty-something, and (3) be far more interested in teaching young people than welcoming people to Wal-Mart or to a fast food counter.

To tap this large and growing labor pool teacher unions, and their political allies, need to place the future of education above union membership. State boards of education need to break free of their fixation with teachers needing to know “teaching methods” instead of knowing real subject matter.

It is easier and cheaper to teach a subject matter professional how to teach, than it is to teach a teacher a subject. I have yet to see any real results from having public school teachers acquire in depth knowledge of “education methods”. If anything, the fixation on teachers knowing methodology instead of content has “dumbed-down” generations of Americans.

This entire matter was addressed at the first “Quality in Education” Conference sponsored by the National Governors Association. Over 2,000 education professionals and officials convened in Houston, Texas in November 1992. One of the first recommendations from the breakout sessions was to adjust teacher certification and recruitment policies so that retirees could be tapped as a full-time or part-time classroom resource.

It has been sixteen years since that national recommendation surfaced. We are no closer to its reality.