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National Education Association Seeks World Transformation

The National Education Association’s (NEA) annual convention took place last week in Chicago. It opened with a theatrical speech act by NEA president, Rebecca (Becky) Pringle who has no dearth of pride in the “amazing accomplishments” of the NEA members. Pringle cited as inspiration for world transformation—not systemically oppressed persons of color like Thomas Sowell, Carol Swain, or Glenn Loury—but communist and former Black Panther who studied under Herbert Marcuse, Angela Davis:

We must share [the] view Professor Davis holds dear whether it is a mind, a heart, a school, a community, or our world, transformation is always possible, change is always possible, NEA, because of you. [wild applause for themselves]

Of the many troubling things Pringle emoted, this may be the most troubling:

NEA, you are answering my call to lead a movement that unites, not just our members, but this entire nation, to reclaim public education as a common good, as the foundation of this democracy, and then transform it into something it was never designed to be—a racially and socially just and equitable system that prepares every student, every student, EVERY STUDENT, EVERY ONE TO SUCCEED IN THIS DIVERSE AND INTERDEPENDENT WORLD!

Yes, she was cacophonously shouting about the NEA’s goal to transform public education into something it was never designed to be.

Precisely how are “socially just and equitable” defined and by whom? How does the NEA propose to achieve their socially constructed goal?

The NEA plans to achieve that goal by using taxpayer funded schools with captive audiences to promote sexual perversity, sexual confusion, science denial, the slaughter of the unborn, compulsory language mandates, censorship of ideas they hate, and the destruction of the nuclear family. That’s how.

Pringle went on to bemoan recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions:

… [T]he rights many of us have spent a lifetime fighting to secure are being stripped away in our lifetimes.

… we’ve known since 2016, since that fateful election, that this day would come—that we would feel the effects of a radicalized Supreme Court, issuing decisions that do not reflect the views or the values of America.

We knew that the ground had shifted and the stage had been set to move us further away from the promise of America for all Americans, from decisions on school prayer that attack religious freedom to vouchers that threaten the right to a universal public education to the long-term devastating impact of the Supreme Court’s decision to hijack the fundamental freedom to decide for ourselves when and how to have a family.

The U.S. Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade—a decision that even leftist law professors have long acknowledged had no grounding in the Constitution—is “radical” but the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned marriage for the whole country was not?

Allowing more powerful, more privileged “pregnant persons” the legal right to have powerless, non-privileged humans killed constitutes the “promise of America”? And here I thought the promise of America was to recognize that all men are created equal and endowed by our Creator with the unalienable right to life. Has Pringle read any books on history, civics, or government other than Howard Zinn’s People’s History of America and the 1619 Project?

Allowing a coach the freedom to choose to pray silently on a football field after a game constitutes an attack on religious freedom?

Providing school vouchers that help give impoverished families a tiny bit of freedom to choose where and how their children are educated constitutes threatening the right to a universal public education?

What Pringle and her thought-control collaborators don’t want is for moms and dads who must work two jobs in order to make ends meet to be allowed to choose not to have their children indoctrinated by leftists who want to turn public education into something it was never intended to be.

Pringle then began shrieking:

As we have for decades, we will fight tirelessly for the right to choose. We will never stop. We will fight unceasingly for the rights of our LGBTQ plus students and educators. We will say gay. We will say trans. We will use the words that validate our students and their families–words that encourage them to walk in their authenticity, to love themselves fully, to become who they are meant to be! 

What if walking in their authenticity includes sadomasochism, polyamory, infantilism, or any other of the myriad paraphilias that delight fallen humans? Will Pringle encourage those students to love themselves fully and become who they are meant to be?

Who exactly intends people to be “gay” or “cross-sex” impersonators, and how does Pringle know that’s how some people are meant to be? Is it the mere presence of persistent, unchosen desire that tells Pringle how someone or something intended those people to be? Do all unchosen, powerful, persistent desires have to be affirmed, in order for humans to fully love themselves?

Pringle’s proclamations “We will say gay. We will say trans,” are an allusion to the Florida law that prohibits teachers from initiating conversations about homosexuality and cross-sex impersonation in grades K-3. Pringle has announced defiantly that creepy members of the NEA should violate Florida law in order to impose their socially constructed assumptions about sexuality on other people’s 5–9-year-olds.

Funny how leftists, who now treat the appointments of Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett as an outrage and insult to the Democratic process, were never exercised when, according to Politico,

Democrats almost exclusively named federal judges and Supreme Court justices for decades. … Of the 22 open Supreme Court seats between 1933 and 1968, 17 were filled by Democratic presidents. And Eisenhower’s five nominees included Earl Warren and William Brennan, two future progressive icons.

Pringle believes that the NEA’s ideological world domination goals are thwarted by unceasing attacks:

We have weathered countless attacks on our profession, on us. We have become exhausted by the demands created by a crippling educator shortage. We have felt our voices grow hoarse from demanding professional pay and the respect we deserve.

Maybe the NEA has something to do with the crippling educator shortage.

Maybe liberty-loving young people don’t want to enter the teaching profession because it is controlled by leftists who demand ideological conformity from faculty, who demand that teachers promote sexual deviance and ideas derived from critical theory, and who disrespect parental rights and transparency.

Maybe veteran teachers are dropping out for the same reasons.

Maybe teachers young and old don’t want to be forced to be vaccinated. Maybe conservative teachers young and old are tired of being “attacked” by taxpayers for the inappropriate decisions leftist teachers make and which dissenting educators are not free to criticize.

Maybe leftist “educators” are getting paid too much and are getting all the respect they deserve.

Maybe teachers or those considering the teaching profession don’t support the commitment of the NEA to profile

the largest 25 organizations “that are actively working to diminish a student’s right to honesty in education, freedom of sexual and gender identity, and teacher autonomy.”

Maybe they object to the NEA’s plan to “spend more than $47 million to elect friendly candidates …, pro-labor judges, lobby for or against legislation, and support state and local affiliates in ballot measure campaigns.”

Maybe they object to the NEA’s decision to “publicly stand in defense of abortion and reproductive rights and encourage members to participate in activities including rallies and demonstrations, lobbying and political campaigns, educational events, and other actions to support the right to abortion.”

The self-important Pringle arrogantly declares to the NEA members the importance of the NEA’s work:

You understand that our work is fundamental to this nation. You have accepted the profound trust that has been placed in us. 

No, the work of the NEA is not fundamental to this nation. In reality, the NEA’s work is fundamental to no one and nothing but leftist ideologues—their beliefs, their systems, and their socio-political agenda.

No leftist event would be complete without an attack on the 2nd Amendment, and Pringle did not disappoint. She claimed to have “listened to the stories of young people who experience gun violence in their communities every day,” but Pringle never mentioned that virtually every mass killer in America’s history has come from a broken, dysfunctional family. Leftists can’t say that because they are committed to the lie that all family structures serve children equally.

The NEA’s work contributes to the slaughter of the unborn; to a false understanding of sexual differentiation, sexual ethics, marriage, and family; to an imbalanced/erroneous view of history; to the dismantling of democratic institutions; to the erosion of liberty, tolerance, ideological diversity, and civility. The NEA is destroying public education, disrespects parental rights, and foments division. The NEA is plucking out all the threads that hold society together. 

At least Pringle admits two true things:

You have found a way to resist even as you hold on to joy. Creative and courageous, prepared and persistent, you stand in the power of the N-E-A, and the NEA stands in the power that is you [wild applause for themselves].

It is true that the NEA has power—too much power. And it is true that the NEA resists. It resists relinquishing power.

Pringle waxes melodramatic as she focuses—not on the needs of children and their families—but on the weepiness of poor pitiful NEA members:

For over a year I have traveled this nation to listen to the voices of, to learn from and to be inspired by our NEA members. … I’ve listened to educators describe their challenges as tears stream down their cheeks.

Today’s “educators” live and move and have their being in narcissism, narrative, and DEEP FEELINGS, so anecdotes about themselves weeping are even better than self-congratulations.

There was little to inspire truth-seekers in Pringle’s performance, but there was this:

Resistance is the secret of joy.

It’s good to know that Pringle looks favorably on resistance, because finally parents are resisting the efforts of public servants to force their socially constructed views on the nature and morality of cross-sex impersonation, homoeroticism, and human slaughter on all American children.

I hope Pringle realizes that one person’s “attack” on the NEA is another person’s act of resistance—which Pringle believes is the secret of joy.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/The-National-Education-Association-Convention.mp3





Exposing Black Lives Matter

Written by Rev. Dr. Eric M. Wallace, PhD.

In my lifetime I have seen a number of organizations and movements pull at the heartstrings of the African American community. In 1995 it was the Million Man March calling on black men to atone for their failings. Today, it is the Black Lives Matter movement that draws our attention and concern. Who of African descent can disagree with the idea that black lives matter? My mother is black. My father is black. My brother and cousins are black. My wife and children are black. How could I not be interested in this movement? How could we not be concerned about the young black men dying at an alarming rate at the hands of police officers and gang violence?

A few months ago, I reluctantly accepted an invitation to speak on the topic of whether Christians should be involved with the Black Lives Matter movement. The topic was especially timely because of growing racial unrest over the murder of Laquan McDonald in Chicago (October 2014), the shooting death of Michael Brown (August 2014) and the gang assassination of Tyshawn Lee. It was also timely because in July 2015, our organization, Freedom’s Journal Institute, held a conference titled “In Defense of Life: Why All Lives Matter.”

The video of Laquan McDonald’s murder had just come to light, and demonstrations were happening in Chicago. These demonstrations were led by people I didn’t necessarily agree with and whose tactics I did not view as glorifying to God. Once I visited the Black Lives Matter (BLM) website, however, I was glad I had accepted the speaking engagement. The BLM website specifically identifies itself with the black liberation movement:

#BlackLivesMatter is a call to action and a response to the virulent anti-Black racism that permeates our society….It goes beyond the narrow nationalism that can be prevalent within Black communities, which merely call on Black people to love Black, live Black and buy Black, keeping straight cis Black men in the front of the movement while our sisters, queer and trans and disabled folk take up roles in the background or not at all.

Black Lives Matter affirms the lives of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, black-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all Black lives along the gender spectrum.  It centers those that have been marginalized within Black liberation movements.  It is a tactic to (re)build the Black liberation movement.

The history, leadership, and troubling emphases of the BLM movement–including how it addresses homosexuality and gender confusion–must be exposed.

The differences between the Civil Rights Movement and the black liberation movement are significant. While the Civil Rights Movement was led by ministers, many of whom held a biblical worldview and infused their protests with prayer, the black liberation movement was associated with the Black Panthers, Angela Davis, and Marxist ideology.  Unfortunately, today’s civil right leaders have largely abandoned a biblical worldview.

The identity of the founders of BLM helps explain the radical underpinnings of the BLM movement. Three community organizer/activist women founded this organization after the death of Trayvon Martin. Two of the three, Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors, identify as “queer” black women. The third founder, Opal Tometi, executive director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration, explained in an interview with The Nation that “we are diligently uplifting black trans women and so the work on the ground in many places does reflect that.”

According to Truthout, Tometi, who is the child of parents who immigrated to the United States illegally, explains that BLM was “[n]ever simply a reaction to police violence against African Americans in the United States, Black Lives Matter was always conceived of as a strategic response to white supremacy.”

In an interview with Cosmopolitan Magazine, Ms. Cullors shared that she is inspired by Assata Shakur who was convicted of first-degree murder for the killing of a New Jersey state trooper and who escaped from federal prison and has been living freely in Cuba since 1984. Shakur was also a member of the former Black Panthers and Black Liberation Army.

Christians who take the Bible seriously must not affirm either homosexuality or gender-confusion. In Romans 1:18-32, Paul teaches  that God unequivocally condemns homosexual practice. Paul also made clear in 1 Corinthians that God can bring deliverance from sins—including homosexual practice:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.  11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

By affirming what God condemns, BLM stands in opposition to the transformative power of Jesus.

While BLM claims to seek justice for oppressed and victimized persons around the world, they fail to address the genocide of black babies through abortion or the deaths of young African American males from gang violence in their list of social injustices. Apparently, what matters most to BLM is ideology.

Reading the “Herstory” page on the BLM website illuminates the organization’s central concerns:

  1. Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise.
  2. Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention.
  3. Black people are deprived of basic human rights and dignity.
  4. Black poverty and genocide is state violence.
  5. When black people get free, everybody gets free.
  6. Black liberation has played an important role in inspiring and anchoring, through practice and theory, social movements for the liberation of all people.

I was surprised to find that with the exception of the last one, I agree with these beliefs. I disagree, however, with the causes of the problems as well as the solutions. What is omitted from the concerns of BLM is the place that both liberal public policy and Planned Parenthood have had in “systematically and intentionally” targeting and destroying the black community. And because BLM gets the causes wrong, it gets the solutions wrong as well.

Whereas BLM sees white supremacy and institutional racism as the causes of the poverty and violence that afflict the black community, conservatives view the causes as bad governmental practices and policies. Most conservatives have long argued that liberal public policies have “systemically targeted” the black family. Blacks have been “deprived of their human rights and dignity” through government largess, which has perpetuated poverty and destroyed the black family. In other words, the “state” has committed violence against black people.

The very liberal social agenda embraced by “progressives” who pursue bigger, more intrusive government continues to harm the lives of blacks. For example, here in Illinois, the economy and public school system, shaped for decades by liberals and liberal policy, are among the worst in the nation. Whose lives are harmed most directly and significantly by our terrible economy and government schools? Black lives.

Worse still, Planned Parenthood (and the abortion lobby in general) has targeted the black community “for demise” since the days when its racist founder Margaret Sanger led the organization. Planned Parenthood continues to commit genocide against black babies.

According to BLM, “black liberation” can be achieved only by reversing the roles of master and slave. The tragic truth is that the policies sought by BLM only serve to keep the black community enslaved. The freedom BLM proposes is not freedom at all. It is slavery under a different master. It calls on black Christians who are already free in Christ to abandon their freedom for black solidarity, which for the Christian is a form of idolatry. The politics of BLM is the politics of racial grievance, a tool used to manipulate both blacks and whites alike.

Read part two HERE.


Dr. Eric Wallace is the co-founder and president of Freedom’s Journal Institute, and has organized the Black Conservative Summit and a one day conference “In Defense of Life: Why All Lives Matter.”  Dr. Wallace and his wife Jennifer live in the south suburbs of Chicago.


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