Thursday, October 27, 2011

IndoctriNation the Movie

by Al Benson Jr.

Just a day or so ago I read an article on the Internet about how a public school principal in Oklahoma, of all places, is harassing a Christian group at the school he presides over. The write of the article noted: "This demonstrates how afraid schools are of anything to do with Christianity" and the writer wondered how Muslim or Hindu groups would have been treated under similar circumstances. They would have been treated a lot better than the Christians were. No doubt of that whatever. One thing I disagree with him about--the public schools are not "afraid" of anything to do with Christianity--they are openly anti-Christian, and their blatantly anti-Christian bias becomes more apparent to those who have eyes to see and have not buried their heads in the sand.

One night recently I watched the movie "IndoctriNation." I was impressed and think every family who has kids in a government (public) school should sit and watch this documentary. This points to what many of us have been saying for decades now--the public school system is anti-Christ, always has been, and makes no bones about it anymore. Christians need to sit and watch this movie, as too many of them have their kids in public schools and then the wonder why the kids leave the church when they graduate from high school. Most of them never figure it out, never even have a clue. This movie would be a real shocker for them. It might even awaken some of them from their bemused complacency.

Over all the years that my wife and I had our kids in Christian schools or home schooled them our chief opposition came from Christians who thought our kids would be much better off in some "good" public school somewhere--one that had a good sports program and a good band program. In one church in Indiana we attended the pastor even came and tried to talk us into putting our kids in the local public school. After I had given him all the reasons we could never do that he went home disappointed. I would dearly love for him to see "IndoctriNation." After I watched this movie, which is about 90 minutes in length, I thanked God we had been able to keep our kids out of the public brain laundries (schools) in the various areas we lived in. Our kids got a Christian education. It wasn't perfect because my wife and I are only sinners redeemed by the blood of Christ, and we made mistakes along the way. But when I look at what the public schools are and have been doing to kids, I am, again, thankful to the Lord that we didn't sell our kids' souls for the sake of a good band program!

The movie started off cataloging the problems people see in public schools today to some extent and it traveled in this vein for about twenty minutes. I thought, watching this part of it, that this is stuff most folks are somewhat aware of, and I hoped it would go a little deeper than this. It did not disappoint me.

Colin Gunn, the man who did the interviewing in the movie took his home schooled family all across the country in one of those infamous "little yellow prisons" (a school bus)as he talked with and interviewed people nationwide, school teachers, former school teachers, authors, parents, etc. There were several people in the film I know personally--Karl Priest, the head of Exodus Mandate in West Virginia, and Randy Murray, a former public school teacher in North Carolina. Both Karl and Randy have been teachers in the public system and after their experiences both have written books exposing the public school system for what it really is.

One necessary thing this film did was to expose the beginnings of the public school system as we now have it--Unitarian/socialist beginnings. Sam Blumenfeld, who has also written a couple books exposing the anti-Christ nature of public schools at their beginning was in the film and he did a masterful job pointing this out. Most Christian folks don't want to think that the public schools they so quickly entrust their kids to were founded by Christ-denying socialists like Robert Owen or men like Horace Mann, a Unitarian who rejected the Trinity and who wanted public schools so the state could control them and thereby denigrate the influence Christian schools had on society. Sam went into all this. This kind of information is where the rubber meets the road, and most Christians are just not willing to take the ride. Easier to leave the kids in public school and just pray for revival there--only when it doesn't come, who do you blame?

Billy Graham's son, Franklin, stood up for the public schools. Why am I not surprised? He said he wanted to see "trained Christian witnesses" among the kids there so we "could take our schools back." Rev. Graham should know better. Those schools were never, never "ours" to begin with. From day one they were the creation of Unitarians and socialists and had Rev. Graham done even superficial homework he should have known that. Bruce Shortt of the Southern Baptist Convention countered Rev. Graham's naive approach by urging parents to get their kids out of public schools, as did Presbyterian pastor R. C. Sproul.

There was one telling point in the movie that took place in a school board meeting in West Virginia, where, thanks be to God, there are still simmering remnants of the textbook protest of the mid-1970s. It showed an angry parent at a school board meeting protesting the obscene nature of a book his 11th grade daughter was required to read. As he went to read passages from the book he was informed by one of the school board members that he "couldn't read that here" because it was a rather vulgar passage. Interesting that what is required reading for an 11th grader in West Virginia is too obscene to be read out loud at a school board meeting. Does that begin to give you some vague clue as to what these schools are doing to your kids???

One attractive young Christian public school teacher was asked to resign because she had mentioned Jesus to her fifth grade class--and she was asked to resign that very day, and was escorted by the principal out the back way so the kids wouldn't see her leave--but leave she did--she had mentioned that unmentionable name, Jesus. That name is taboo in public schools unless used as part of a cuss word.

And then there was the classic shot of an official for a teachers' union giving a speech in which he very plainly stated that the agenda of his union had nothing to do with educating children--it was all about money and power. He was right.

There was so much solid ground covered in "IndoctriNation" that I cannot cover all of it in this article. You need to see the movie. It belongs in every church library in the country.

When I was first asked to consider writing a review for the movie I wanted to know where folks could get it. I was told that it is available at
http://www.indoctrinationmovie.com/about-indoctrination and also at
http://www.americanvision.com/indoctrination/ Hopefully this will give you some place to start. I found information about it just from doing a Google search on the Internet. Please, get this movie, watch it, and pass it along to folks in your church, especially if their kids are in public schools. They need to see this, even if they'd rather not

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

The Tenth Point (of the Communist Manifesto) Part 5

by Al Benson Jr.

Some of what happened in West Virginia in 1974 (taken from my own notes made in early 1975)

In May, 1974, Mrs. Alice Moore, a member of the School Board, brought to the attention of the Kanawha County Board of Education and to the attention of Kanawha County parents, the content of the anti-Christian and anti-American textbooks that were about to be adopted for use in Kanawha County government (public) schools. As bad as some of the content of these books was they were adopted for use in Kanawha County schools on June 27, 1974 by the school board on a 3-2 vote. This was done in spite of the presence of over 1200 protesters who crowded the Board of Education offices and also stood out in the pouring rain asking that these books not be adopted. The adoption was done in spite of 12,000 signatures on a petition asking that these books not be adopted for use in schools by the Board. In the face of all this protest, on the recommendation of several English teachers, the books were accepted.

So much for the myth of parental input in government schools--and it is a myth.

During the month of June, 1974, a group called Christian American Parents was formed to try to combat the textbooks and their influence. In July, a department store, Hecks Inc. was picketed by parents. The man who was president of the store was on the school board and had voted to adopt the rotten textbooks. This was one method the parents had to legitimately protest his actions.

In August of 1974 a group led by Rev. Darrell Beech went to see the Superintendent of Schools, Mr. Kenneth Underwood, to ask him if he would remove the books. Mr. Underwood claimed his hands were tied--the books were legally adopted. Mr. Underwood claimed he could do nothing about the situation (did he even really want to?). The frustrated parents claimed they could do something. They could boycott the schools!

You have to realize that, at this point, the protesters had tried to do everything legally and properly and none of those in authority in any capacity were willing to help them.

It is interesting to note that Mr. Underwood, during an interview granted to the "Charleston Daily Mail" said, in regard to the books: "As a total literature program, I think it's great. There are some expressions I don't like, but I don't know if it's because they are filthy." While Underwood claimed he didn't really know if it was right to shove the books down the kids' throats against the parents' wishes, he balanced that thought off with one that contradicted it. He said "But, again, there is no way I can see these books have to be thrown out." That interview was published in the "Charleston Daily Mail" for October 12, 1974. In August Underwood's hands had been tied. He couldn't get the books out; they were legally adopted. However, by October, Underwood thinks the books as a "total literature program" are "just great." Either Mr. Underwood's thinking underwent a remarkable evolution from August to October, or, from his comments it appears he would not have tried to get rid of the books if he could have.

In August, 1974, another group, the Concerned Citizens of Kanawha County was formed. Also that August an anti-textbook group demonstrated at the governor's mansion. The governor was conveniently "out of town." Had the protesters been some sort of radical left-wing group he would almost certainly been on hand to welcome them with open political arms. Politicians are always on hand to toss out the welcome mat to the left-wingers, but for Christians and patriots they are almost always "out of town." The following week more protesters visited the governor's mansion. The honorable Governor still seemed to be "out of town." I suspect, had protesters visited the governor's mansion every day for the next year they would have been informed that he was on a year's sabbatical to Pago Pago.

The Tuesday before school started in 1974 there was an anti-textbook rally in St. Albans, West Virginia with about 400 present. These folks met and voted to boycott government schools until the rotten textbooks were out. It was now getting to the point where the local media had to say something and the local papers came out with the story (no doubt hoping to keep it local). However, a mass protest was planned at the Civil Center in Charleston, and on Thursday several thousand parents turned out, carrying signs and passing out printed excerpts from the questionable textbooks. That gave folks a real chance to see some of what was in the books. They didn't like it.

That Saturday about 7,000 protesters met at Point Lick Community Park. State police had to turn people away for lack of room and traffic was backed up for two miles! All this the very last week before school started! A few dedicated Christian patriots had worked away all summer to get the word out about what was really in Mr. Underwood's "great" literature program and their efforts bore fruit. From a handful they went to thousands in a few weeks and they did something in Kanawha County, West Virginia that ought to be done in every county and parish in the United States! Despite the rotten media coverage they got (and still get today in retrospect) the parents of Kanawha County succeeded in focusing national attention on a public school system such as no one else has been able to do, before or since.

What they did not realize at the time was that their own government, at all levels, would turn out to be their chief antagonist. The public school system was part and parcel of a grand design to undermine and destroy their faith and culture by brainwashing their children. That program continues to this day.

Friday, October 14, 2011

The Tenth Point (of the Communist Manifesto) Part 4

by Al Benson Jr.

Today we see a giant, monster public education bureaucracy, financed by Washington (with our money). There is, after all, nothing quite like financing your own destruction. Horace Mann and the Order notwithstanding, we have as much crime, poverty, and sin as we ever had--more in fact. We should be able to look back at how wrong Horace Mann was, intentionally or otherwise, and see how closely akin to Marxism his thought processes were. Mann was a beautiful example of what I call the Yankee/Marxist.

Undoubtedly due to his connections with the Order and under the influence of it, Mann worked diligently to free schools of their basically Christian and independent status and to put them under the thumb of government. His hostility toward Calvinism and the Reformed Faith in New England and against schools free of government meddling knew almost no bounds. In his view schools were only "free" once they experienced the "liberty" of state regulation. Before that they were captives to their own independence and the independence of the churches that ran them. This had to cease and Mann helped to make sure it did.

Some have said that Mann was naive about socialism, though with his connections to the Order I might question that. He was completely committed to a socialized order, of which the government-controlled school was the first basic part. The conversion of American education into a government-run instrument was the most dangerous step into socialism this country could have taken--and the sad tragedy of it was that Christians had been gulled into going along with and promoting it. They still do.

In the "Communist Manifesto" which hack writer Karl Marx wrote at the behest of the League of the Just (Illuminati) in 1848 (if you look at the first edition of the Manifesto it didn't even have Marx's name on it) you will see that Marx listed ten measures which Communists could use in varying degrees to accomplish the undermining and, hence, the eventual takeover of a nation by communism. The tenth point on that list is "free education for all children in public schools..." Can it not be said, then, that the government-run public school system is one of the measures of a communist society? That tenth point is the most insidious of all. So what Marx advocated in "The Communist Manifesto" Horace Mann had already set out to accomplish in the United States. Whether these two individuals were acquainted with each other or not, the damage has been done. Today we live with the results. Don't ever think that ideas from the past don't have consequences for you today.

Mann's contention that public education would cure all the social ills of the nation has been shown to be utter folly. Mann contended that by changing a person's environment you would change the person. He neglected to deal with the problem of human sin, which for him, did not exist. Hence his system of education will never do what he thought it would. The only answer for the problem of human sin is Jesus Christ and Mann had rejected Him as little more than a good moral example. He did not grasp that education without Christ does little more than to create clever devils. Whether Mann grasped this or not, those that influenced him did.

Going in the other direction, let us look at a man named Zach Montgomery. He was Assistant Attorney General of the United States, and in 1886, he published his thoughts on education in a book entitled "The School Question." Montgomery was an outspoken opponent of government-run education and he had done his homework. Montgomery showed with statistics that a relationship existed between state-run education and the rise in criminality, suicide, and delinquency--exactly the opposite of what Horace Mann had predicted! States which had most recently gone over to public schools showed a lower rate in each of these instances than states which had accepted public school education earlier.

Montgomery questioned the right of the state to even enter the field of education. He felt this was and should be a parental concern (the Bible makes this clear). The children did not and do not belong to the state, or to the Board of Education, yet the implication of a government-run education system were and are that they do.

This created a problem in West Virginia. Parents still thought their children belonged to them and not to the state. They had to be taught a lesson.

To be continued.

Thursday, October 06, 2011

The Tenth Point (of the Communist Manifesto) Part 3

by Al Benson Jr.

I expect, at this point, I need to shed a little light on the origins of the public, or government, school system. It is worth noting, contrary to the most vocal liberal opinion, that the "public school movement" in this country did not even exist until the 1830s.

Horace Mann (1796-1859) has been called the "father of the common schools." I have seen no history book to date that bothered to tell anyone that Horace Mann was a Unitarian, a member of a "Christian" denomination that denies the deity of Jesus Christ. Unitarians, especially in the New England states, were in the front lines of the struggle to implement compulsory public schools.

The Unitarians felt that Christian schools were backward. They felt that education must be concerned with "liberty" and that "liberty" came from the state, not from God. In their eyes, education, to fulfill its calling, had to be government-run. Mr. Mann felt that government-run schools would rid the nation of crime, poverty, sin, etc., within a century. Well, the century has passed, and guess what? To say that Mann's claim was erroneous would be a gross understatement.

Back in the mid-1970s historian Antony C. Sutton wrote a number of informative books, among which were "Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution" and "Wall Street and FDR." More material you won't find in the "history" books. In 1986 he wrote one, one of his last, called "America's Secret Establishment--An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones." We've all heard about several prominent politicians who belonged to it--George Bush, John Kerry I think, and many more--but they refuse to talk about it. It really is America's secret establishment. And as such, it is into the public school education program. You might say the Order has a vested interest.

In his book Sutton noted that "A tragic failure of American education in this century has been a failure to teach children how to read and write and how to express themselves in a literary form. For the educational system this may not be too distressing. As we shall see later, their prime purpose is not to teach subject matter but to condition children to live as socially integrated citizen units in an organic society--a real life enactment of the Hegelian absolute State. In this State the individual finds freedom only in obedience to the State, consequently the function of education is to prepare the individual citizen for smooth entry into the organic whole." No place for God or His Law in this setup--the man-made State is top dog.

Sutton observed that possibly the Order wants "citizen components" to be "little more than automated order takers;..." After all, citizens that can barely read or write are not too likely to challenge the Establishment. They are, to all intents and purposes, functionally illiterate.

It's also interesting to note that the "Look-Say" reading method that most of us were taught to read with in primary public school was developed around 1810 for deaf mutes. So why was it picked up and used for generations of children that did not have these problems?

According to Sutton, on page 83 of his book: "Horace Mann, whom we met in Memorandum Two as the promoter of 'look-say' reading was the first president of Antioch College (1853-1860). The most prominent trustee of Antioch College was none other than the co-founder of the Order, Alphonso Taft..Furthermore, Cincinnati, Ohio at that time was the center for a Young Hegelian Movement including famous left Hegelian August Willich, and these were well known to Judge Alphonso Taft." For anyone that has read the book Donnie Kennedy and I wrote "Lincoln's Marxists" (Pelican Publishing, Gretna, Louisiana) the name August Willich will ring a bell. He was one of Abraham Lincoln's Marxist generals during the War of Northern Aggression.

It seems that Mr. Mann, the "father of the common schools" had some interesting connections.

Could it be that the real purpose of the public schools was not to much to educate as to indoctrinate? That's the conclusion that Antony Sutton has arrived at and my research over the years has brought me to the point where I have to agree with his assessment.

To be continued.