We are all familiar with the expressions, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” or, “A stitch in time saves nine,” meaning it is wise to catch a problem early, while it is small and manageable, rather than to wait until it has grown and become a serious threat. We understand this with things like weeds in our garden or cancer.  But somehow, we neglect it in the arenas of politics and culture.

James Madison lamented that Americans waited until a situation became a crisis before they acted. Politics are so wide ranging, and solutions seemingly beyond the reach of the individual, so most people simply throw up their hands and hope for the best. This must change if America is to survive the Socialist onslaught it is now facing!  “Now is the time,” as Patrick Henry admonished, “for all good men to come to the aid of their country!”

If you are at all aware of what is going on in America, you know radical changes are occurring. This nation was founded on the novel idea that if people are adequately taught in Christian virtues and are self-disciplined, they can govern themselves. Is it not transparently clear that if people govern themselves, they need nobody else to govern them? America is the only, or at least best, example in human history of a self-governing nation!

Abraham Lincoln noted in his famous “Gettysburg Address” that we have a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” The point being that, as the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution states, “We the People” are the government and those we send to our state and national capitals are our servants, not our masters. With the events of the last several years it appears that many of those we have sent to do our will now see themselves as rulers, not servants. President Joe Biden exposed his own personal ambition when he commented publicly regarding Georgia gubernatorial candidate, Stacy Abrams, that if the Democrat Party had more like her, “We could rule the world!”

No, Mr. Biden, the U.S. Constitution does not make politicians rulers! It makes them servants! Any American politician who establishes himself as the “ruler” is guilty of insurrection!

Good and wise leaders do not exacerbate public fears or exploit them to increase their own personal power, but rather seek to calm the public in times of crisis. Yet day after day our political and cultural leaders ignite new fires and then throw gasoline on them to arouse as much fear as possible. Sweep aside the rhetoric and anyone can see that while the pandemic has tragically taken many lives, it has not done nearly as much damage to America as the rhetoric and fearmongering have.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died in wars to enable us to be free to live according to our own consciences, desires, and abilities, but we are now being led down a path toward submission, even tyranny, ironically in the name of “saving lives!” However, virtually everything we have heard from the media and government over the last two years has proven to be either inaccurate or outright lies!  One mandate after another is conditioning Americans to the idea that our elected leaders are our masters, and we must obey them! This must be resisted!

Individually we do not have much power, and neither do our political leaders, which is as it should be. It is only as we come together, listen to one-another, find common ground, and make decisions as a nation that changes are made.

Should we be concerned that tyrants might lurk in the halls of Congress or other institutions of power in the United States masquerading as beneficent saviors?  Well, consider that Joseph Stalin studied religion as a young man, and Adolf Hitler wanted to be an artist. Basher al-Assad, the butcher of Syria, studied for a career in medicine. From these examples we understand that tyrants’ personal ambitions and brutality are generally not known until it is too late to stop them.

The adage, “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” reminds us that under no circumstance can we allow individuals or small groups to gain too much power. Do we have a Hitler or Stalin walking in our midst? Do we really wish to find out? By the time we figure it out it will be too late  At times like this we should look back to patriot Patrick Henry who notably asked,

“is life so dear and peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?  Forbid it, Almighty God!” 

He also noted that

“the Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government-lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.” 

How prescient he was!

For that reason, we must act now to prevent any person or any group from amassing such political powers.  If multiplied thousands of Americans went to their deaths on the battle fields of Europe and the South Pacific to ensure our liberties, then we must not shirk our responsibility to stand for freedom, regardless of the personal or national cost.

We were told in panicked tones that COVID-19 would take millions of lives in America, but if we wore masks for two weeks it would flatten the curve and put us on a course to defeat it. Here we are, over two years later and neither of those predictions were accurate. Such proclamations were, in fact, merely a pretext for amassing power in Washington. Sadly, a precise accounting of deaths appears impossible as anecdotal evidence suggests the government incentivized listing any death where Covid-19 was present a COVID death, even if the virus was not the actual cause of death.

And we have myriad reports of people dying who were not infected at all yet were reported as COVID related deaths. What actually happened? We don’t really know, do we? It is said that “the first victim of war is truth.” And, if you are not seeing it, understand that we are in, as some have pointed out, a “cold civil war.” Americans are terribly divided, and our leadership is largely to blame.

Actor Michael Douglas in a video made not long ago noted that our political system has been “hijacked” to “ensure that those with power keep it.” Truer words have not been spoken. Our Constitution yields very limited power to elected officials and only for a brief time. It is diametrically opposed to anyone having great power for even a moment.

The answer to the power-grab by the Leftists is not to accrue power to conservatives, but to educate all Americans regarding the necessity of diffusing power across the electorate, and the importance of informed voting. Loyalty to God and country must eclipse Party and even friends. Too much is at stake!

First and foremost, the answer for America is to bow at the feet of Jesus Christ in repentance and submission to His lordship over every nation and people!

If noble and patriotic citizens do not stand up, speak up and act, it may soon be too late.

What we are witnessing in Ukraine is not a tragedy, it is an atrocity.  A tragedy is when an innocent person dies in an accident.  What Vladimir Putin is inflicting on the people of Ukraine, and to some extent on his own military personnel and citizens, is an abomination, an unjustified violation of every standard of justice and goodness.  It is an evil that Europe and the world have not witnessed since Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

Putin evidently does not mind being compared to Hitler, as he is visibly committing the same types of atrocities against innocent citizens of Ukraine, including children; but it is not so clear whether his associates and generals wish to go down in history as the 21 Century iteration of the Fuhrer. This ought to give them pause.

It is quite difficult to see anything good coming from this war, but we must recall that God still reigns, and for His own reasons allows evil men from time-to-time to manifest to the world how wicked the unchecked human heart is.

If there is any silver lining in this event it may be this: The entire world and especially people in the United States are witnessing the natural result of socialism. Carry BLM, Wokeism, Biden’s and the Democratic Party’s objectives to their logical conclusion and you will find yourself in Mr. Putin’s neighborhood. Every lover of liberty and justice ought to point out in every way possible the relationship between socialism and totalitarianism. It is not an accident that unchecked socialism always results in bondage for the people.

It may be that if enough Americans connect the dots, socialism, despite all protestations to the contrary, will finally be understood for what it is, the horse upon which modern tyrants ride to power.

Do not be fooled!

We are all familiar with the expressions, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” or, “A stitch in time saves nine,” meaning it is wise to catch a problem early, while it is small and manageable, rather than to wait until it has grown and become a serious threat.  We understand this with things like weeds in our garden or cancer.  But somehow, we neglect it in the arena of politics.

James Madison lamented that Americans waited until a situation became a crisis before they acted, but I expect it is not only Americans who have that problem. It is people in general. Politics are so wide ranging, and solutions seemingly beyond the reach of the individual, most people simply throw up their hands and hope for the best. This must change for those of us who love what made America the greatest and freest nation ever!

If you are at all aware of what is going on in America, you know radical changes are occurring. This nation was founded on the novel idea that if people are adequately taught in Christian virtues and self-disciplined, they can govern themselves. America is the only, or at least best, example in human history of a self-governing nation! Abraham Lincoln noted in his famous “Gettysburg Address” that we have a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”  The point being that, as the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution states, “We the People” are the government and those we send to our state and national capitals are our servants, not our masters.  With the events of the last several years it is clear that many of those we have sent to do our will now see themselves as rulers, not servants.  President Joe Biden betrayed his own personal ambition when he commented publicly regarding Georgia gubernatorial candidate, Stacey Abrams, that if the Democrat Party had many more like her, “We could rule the world!”

No, Mr. Biden, our Constitution does not make politicians rulers!  It makes them servants!  Any American politician who establishes himself as a “ruler” is guilty of insurrection!

Good and wise leaders do not exacerbate fears or exploit them to increase their own personal power, but rather seek to calm the public in times of crisis.  Yet day after day our political and cultural leaders ignite new fires and then throw gasoline on them to arouse as much panic as possible.  Sweep aside the rhetoric and anyone can see that while the pandemic has tragically taken many lives, it has not done nearly as much damage to America as the rhetoric and fearmongering.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died in wars to enable us to be free to live according to our own consciences, desires, and abilities, but we are now being led down a path toward submission, even tyranny, ironically in the name of “saving lives!”  However, virtually everything we have heard from the media and government over the last eighteen months has proven to be either inaccurate or outright lies! One mandate after another is getting Americans used to the idea that “they” are our masters, and we must obey! This must be resisted!

Should we be concerned that tyrants might walk the halls of Congress or other institutions of power in the United States?  Well, consider that Joseph Stalin studied religion as a young man, and Adolf Hitler wanted to be an artist.  Basher al-Assad, the butcher of Syria, studied medicine. From these examples we understand that tyrants’ personal ambitions and brutality are generally not known until it is too late to stop them.

The adage, “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” reminds us that under no circumstance can we allow individuals or small groups to gain too much power. Do we have a Hitler or Stalin walking in our midst? Do we really wish to find out? By the time we figure it out it will be too late! At times like this we are reminded of the thoughts of patriot Patrick Henry who notably said, “is life so dear and peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?  Forbid it, Almighty God!” He also noted that “the Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government-lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.” How prescient he was!

For that reason, we must act now to prevent any person or any group from amassing such political powers. If multiplied thousands of Americans went to their deaths on the battle fields of Europe and the South Pacific to ensure our liberties, then we must not shirk our responsibility to stand for freedom, regardless of the personal or national cost.

We were told in panicked tones that COVID-19 would take millions of lives in America, and that if we wore masks for two weeks it would flatten the curve and put us on a course to defeat it. Here we are, going on two years since the virus showed up and neither of those predictions were accurate. Such proclamations were, in fact, merely a pretext for amassing power to Washington. Sadly, a precise accounting of deaths appears impossible as the government incentivized listing any death where COVID-19 was present a COVID death, even if COVID was not the actual cause of death.  And we have myriad anecdotal reports of people dying who were not infected at all yet were reported as COVID related deaths. We understand that “the first victim of war is truth.” And, if you are not seeing it, understand that we are in, as some have pointed out, a “cold civil war.”

Actor Michael Douglas in a video made not long ago noted that our political system has been “hijacked” to “ensure that those with power keep it.”

Truer words have not been spoken, and if noble and patriotic citizens do not stand up, speak up and act, it may soon be too late.

We saw it during the Super Bowl on Sunday, as many of the commercials fell flat. We saw it with the cancelling of the Washington Redskins name, only to replace it with the Washington Football Team. And now we’re seeing it with the replacing of the Aunt Jemima brand with – get ready – the Pearl Milling Company. (You heard that correctly.) The cancel culture is stifling creativity.

As for the Super Bowl, the New York Post cited Bill Oberlander, co-founder and executive creative of ad agency Oberland on January 24. He said,

“There is trepidation around Super Bowl advertising this year. For the Super Bowl, you generally go big or go home. I think brands are going home rather than spending tens of millions of dollars and not getting it right. They’re saying, ‘Let’s wait until this s—storm clears.’”

Simply stated, there were too many minefields to navigate. Best to play it safe rather than offend. The results on Super Bowl Sunday, for the most part, were quite bland.

Speaking to this very situation, but from a different, artistic perspective, British actor John Cheese of Monte Python fame, noted that cancel culture “misunderstands the main purposes of life which is to have fun.”

He explained, “Everything humorous is critical. If you have someone who is perfectly kind and intelligent and flexible and who always behaves appropriately, they’re not funny.” He added that

“there’s plenty of people who are PC [politically correct] now who have absolutely zero sense of humour. I would love to debate, in a friendly way, a couple of ‘woke’ people in front of an audience. And I think the first thing I would say is, please tell me a good ‘woke’ joke.”

In reality, the joke is often the woke culture itself.

When it came to the renaming of the Redskins, had there been a genuine outcry over the name from a significant number of Native Americans, that would have been one thing. (Different polls yielded different results, with some indicating strong Native American support for the Redskins brand.) Just imagine what would happen if a Gentile sports team named themselves the Jewboys. Or if a white sports team used the n-word in its name. Enough said.

The problem with the Redskins name is that, to my knowledge, most of the outcry came from the woke left rather than from the Native American community itself. And, since the woke, cancel culture does a better job of tearing down than building up, the Redskins name was, for the moment, replaced with nothing. “Go, Washington Football Team!” Better safe (and bland and generic and lifeless) than sorry.

Thanks, cancel culture, for nothing (literally).

As for Aunt Jemima, had the image and name been exploitative, that would have been one thing. Had it glorified slavery (or even minimized the horrors of slavery) or caricatured African Americans, that would have been good enough reason to rebrand. But that was not the case.

As noted by Bryan Preston at Red State,

“Nancy Green was born a slave in Kentucky but thanks to pancakes she became an advertising pioneer. Green one of the world’s first brand influencers. She brought the Aunt Jemima character to life back in 1893 and made a good living portraying Aunt Jemima until her death in the 1920s.”

Indeed,

“Not only was she free, America would make her famous, and products with her face on them would be in just about every kitchen in the country.  Green was an overcomer who used her position and the money it paid her to become an activist and a Christian missionary when she moved to Chicago.”

He rightly asks, “Why throw her away?” (See his article for more on Nancy Green’s successor.)

There was actually something personal and positive about the Aunt Jemima brand, putting a face on a product. And this was not done in a demeaning way. Instead, the message was, “What I’m cooking is so good that you want to buy my brand.”

And so, millions of Americans bought that brand for decades, until now. I wonder what Nancy Green would say about all this today?

In the end, the cancel culture actually cancels culture, demolishing everything it finds offensive and replacing it with uncreative blandness.

Interestingly, an article originally published March 2017 stated that, “Research shows that the political ideology of communism restricts innovation, which is the panacea for economic growth and long-term prosperity today.”

And on an artistic, creative level, I wonder how much beauty and art and innovative writing and new musical composition can be traced back to Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China or Kim John-un’s North Korea.

It looks like the cancel culture has a soulmate.

This article was originally published at AskDrBrown.org.

An important new book by historian Paul Kengor sheds considerable light on Karl Marx and by implication the madness and mob violence that has descended on the country.

The throngs setting fire to police stations, looting stores and tearing down America’s cultural history are acting in the name of Black Lives Matter, a Marxist group that our ruling elites have airbrushed and turned into a totem of worship.

The current conflict is not merely a political disagreement over rectifying racial disparities; it’s a clash of religions: atheistic Marxism versus Christianity and Judaism.

At issue is whether the mobs, allied with the Democratic Party and leftist groups, can overthrow America’s Christian-inspired self-governing republic, where our rights come from our Creator, not fickle men in power.

In “The Devil and Karl Marx,” Prof. Kengor explores not only the communist icon’s religious views but how they corrupted so many others over nearly two centuries.

Marx hated God and Christianity with a white-hot passion. His prose is packed with attacks on faith, and his youthful poetry bristles with malice:

Look now, my blood-dark sword shall stab

Unerringly within thy soul.

God neither knows nor honors art.

The hellish vapors rise and fill the brain

Till I go mad and my heart is utterly changed.

See the sword—the Prince of Darkness sold it to me.

For he beats the time and gives the signs.

Ever more boldly I play the dance of death.

Citing numerous biographies and Marx’s own writings, Prof. Kengor reveals a man whose own family and friends were frightened by his demonic fits of rage and dark babblings about violence.  His own father said he was “governed by a demon.”  A key biographer, Robert Payne, described Marx as having “the devil’s view of the world and the devil‘s malignity.”

In 1849, Marx wrote,

When our turn comes, we shall make no excuses for the terror. There is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.

A direct line can be drawn from Marx to Adolph Hitler, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-Tung, all of whom despised Christianity and embraced murderous forms of socialism.

Before Marx, violent socialism was unleashed in 1789, with the guillotining of 40,000 aristocrats and others.  The French Revolution was ultimately an atheist revolt against the church and the rule of law.  The Jacobins in revolutionary France sought to wipe out history in order to create a Godless utopia. A hint of their fanatical atheism can be seen today in the beheadings in America of statues of Jesus and Mary and the torching of churches.

Communist revolutions, beginning in Russia in 1917, have taken at least 140 million lives, enslaved literally billions of people and spread unspeakable horror everywhere Marxism has taken root, Dr. Kengor notes.

When Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullours boasted in 2015 that “myself” and BLM co-founder Alicia Garza “are trained Marxists,” was she aware of the poisonous pedigree of her stated worldview?  Perhaps it didn’t matter.

BLM’s website is packed with Marxist rhetoric and flat-out lies like this: “In 2014, Mike Brown was murdered by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.”  Mr. Wilson, who was acting in self-defense, was cleared during the Obama Administration.  Never get in the way of a useful narrative.

Among other things, BLM is using the LGBTQ movement as a blunt instrument:

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure… foster a queer-affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking.

Families produce independent-minded people, which is why socialists promote sexual anarchy.  Marx and his co-author Friedrich Engels denounced families, saying the state should seize and raise children.

The rapidity with which virtually every sizable institution in America has bent its knee to BLM is stunning.  To be fair, most probably think it’s just about racial remonstrance and reforming police procedure, and even love of neighbor and equality before God.

But the call for getting on one’s knees to this movement and parroting their Marxist slogans is anything but sacred. How do Christians, in particular, justify kneeling to anything other than God Almighty and His Son Jesus Christ? A few courageous athletes have refused to go along.

For many, fear of man has triumphed over devotion to God.  Aided by a relentless media, Democrats have embraced Marxist mob rule while few Republicans other than President Trump have found the courage to call it what it is: un-American and evil.

A final word on Marx. If he had had a glimpse into the murderous misery his philosophy would unleash, would he have shelved his books and spared the world?

Hardly likely. Prof. Kengor shares a line from the heroine in one of Marx’s poems:

Thus Heaven I’ve forfeited, I know it full well. My soul, once true to God, is chosen for Hell.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com.

Written by Walter E. Williams

Most people who call themselves Marxists know very little of Karl Marx‘s life and have never read his three-volume “Das Kapital.” Volume I was published in 1867, the only volume published before Marx’s death in 1883. Volumes II and III were later edited and published in his name by his friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels. Most people who call themselves Marxists have only read his 1848 pamphlet “The Communist Manifesto,” which was written with Engels.

Marx is a hero to many labor union leaders and civil rights organizations, including leftist groups like Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and some Democratic Party leaders. It is easy to be a Marxist if you know little of his life. Marx’s predictions about capitalism and the “withering away of the state” turned out to be grossly wrong. What most people do not know is that Marx was a racist and an anti-Semite.

When the U.S. annexed California after the Mexican-American War, Marx wrote: “Without violence nothing is ever accomplished in history.” Then he asked, “Is it a misfortune that magnificent California was seized from the lazy Mexicans who did not know what to do with it?” Friedrich Engels added: “In America we have witnessed the conquest of Mexico and have rejoiced at it. It is to the interest of its own development that Mexico will be placed under the tutelage of the United States.” Many of Marx’s racist ideas were reported in “Karl Marx, Racist,” a book written by Nathaniel Weyl, a former member of the U.S. Communist Party.

In a July 1862 letter to Engels, in reference to his socialist political competitor Ferdinand Lassalle, Marx wrote:

It is now completely clear to me that he, as is proved by his cranial formation and his hair, descends from the Negroes from Egypt, assuming that his mother or grandmother had not interbred with a nigger. Now this union of Judaism and Germanism with a basic Negro substance must produce a peculiar product. The obtrusiveness of the fellow is also nigger-like.

In 1887, Paul Lafargue, who was Marx’s son-in-law, was a candidate for a council seat in a Paris district that contained a zoo. Engels claimed that Paul had “one eighth or one twelfth nigger blood.” In an April 1887 letter to Paul’s wife, Engels wrote, “Being in his quality as a nigger, a degree nearer to the rest of the animal kingdom than the rest of us, he is undoubtedly the most appropriate representative of that district.”

Marx’s anti-Semitic views were no secret. In 1844, he published an essay titled “On the Jewish Question.” He wrote that the worldly religion of Jews was “huckstering” and that the Jews’ god was “money.” Marx’s view of Jews was that they could only become an emancipated ethnicity or culture when they no longer exist. Just one step short of calling for genocide, Marx said, “The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way.”

Marx’s philosophical successors shared ugly thoughts on blacks and other minorities. Che Guevara, a hero of the left, was a horrific racist. In his 1952 memoir, “The Motorcycle Diaries,” Guevara wrote,

The Negro is indolent and lazy and spends his money on frivolities, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent.

British socialist Beatrice Webb griped in The New Statesmen about declining birthrates among so-called higher races, which would lead to “a new social order” that would be created “by one or other of the colored races, the Negro, the Kaffir or the Chinese.” The Soviets espoused the same “Jewish world conspiracy” as the Nazis. Joseph Stalin embarked upon a campaign that led to the deaths of Jewish intellectuals for their apparent lack of patriotism. By the way, the Soviet public was not told that Karl Marx was Jewish. Academics who preach Marxism to their classes fail to tell their students that his ideology has led to the slaughter of tens of millions of people. What’s worse, they fail to even feign concern over this fact.

White liberals are useful idiots. BLM, Antifa, and other progressive groups use the plight of poor blacks to organize left-leaning, middle-class, college-educated, guilt-ridden suburbanite whites. These people who topple statues and destroy public and private property care about minorities as much as their racist predecessors. Their goal is the acquisition and concentration of power and Americans have fallen hook, line, and sinker for their phony virtue signaling.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Jesus once stated that “the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light” (Luke 16:8). Unfortunately, this has been proven all too true in recent generations when it comes to the battle for our culture. On the whole, it seems that those who oppose Christ have been far more successful in shaping society than have the followers of God.

One area of our culture where this appears to be particularly true is the realm of education. While the church has been surprisingly complacent on the question of who will educate our children, many in the world have keenly understood the value of capturing the minds of the next generation.

Consider a few quotes from some of the greatest villains of the twentieth century:

“He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.” – Adolph Hitler

“Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” – Joseph Stalin

“Give me four years to teach the children, and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” – Vladimir Lenin

It’s All About Ideas

Why did these men place such emphasis on education? The answer isn’t complicated. Through education, we communicate and inculcate ideas, values, and beliefs. He who is most successful in communicating his value system and worldview to the next generation wins the culture.

Stalin expressed it this way: “Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas[?]”

Stalin understood that whoever controls the flow of ideas controls the direction of culture. He understood that in a fight for physical superiority, it would be foolish to hand your opponent a gun. Similarly, in an intellectual battle, the one with no ideas and convictions is sure to lose. And so whether the goal is amassing political power or reconstructing society, gaining a monopoly on the flow of ideas is a powerful move.

NO NEUTRALITY

No education is neutral because education is about ideas and ideas aren’t neutral. Despite the popular notion that our public schools are neutral, the truth is that they’re nothing of the kind. Neutrality simply isn’t possible when we’re discussing such worldview-laden topics as history, science, ethics, and morality. And if we’re honest with ourselves, we have to admit that the dominant worldviews in our public schools today are far from Christian.

This isn’t a wild-eyed conspiracy theory. It’s simply a fact. Our public schools aren’t making any attempt to educate our children from a Christian perspective. So is it really surprising—after decades of a near-monopoly on the part of secular education—that our culture is becoming more secular? What would actually be surprising is if our culture somehow weren’t becoming more secular!

REAPING WHAT WE SOW

This is a fundamental truth, yet one we often overlook when it comes to education. If we sow secularism in our children’s minds, the result will be a secular culture. But this goes back to the point I made at the beginning of this article, that the church has been surprisingly complacent on the topic of education. It’s as if we believe the principle of sowing and reaping applies to everything but our children’s minds. An honest look at what’s happening around us should convince us that this is faulty thinking.

WISING UP

It’s been said that politics is downstream of culture. While this may not be universally true (and policy certainly exerts an influence on our culture), we can’t deny that our politics often respond to the direction we’re moving as a society. If that’s true, and if we want to turn the tide in our culture, we need to direct our attention upstream. I’m not saying we should ignore politics (we shouldn’t). What I am saying is that if we fight only in the political sphere and leave the shaping of the hearts and minds of the next generation to our ideological opponents, any political victories we may win will be short-lived.

Education is certainly one of those areas that’s upstream of culture, and it’s time we wised up to its power. There’s a reason God commanded the Israelites in Deuteronomy 6 to teach their children diligently in His ways. Simply put, the formation of young hearts and minds is a big job, and the worldview we teach them matters.

CHANGE A MIND, CHANGE THE WORLD

When we instruct a young mind in God’s truth, we’re literally impacting the future. When we take the formation of the next generation seriously, we not only impact our children (which is, of course, significant on its own), we also reclaim the power to change our nation.

Imagine what would happen if every Christian family in America decided that we’ve been losing the next generation for too long. Imagine what would happen if every Christian family in America said no to secular education. Imagine what would happen if every Christian family in America decided to educate their children in a manner consistent with their faith. Would it make a difference? Absolutely. Because what we teach matters.

Education really is the not-so-secret weapon of the culture wars.

IFI Worldview Conference May 5th

We have rescheduled our annual Worldview Conference featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet for Saturday, May 5th at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Join us for a wonderful opportunity to take enhance your biblical worldview and equip you to more effectively engage the culture.

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

In the wake of the violent confrontation and death in Charlottesville, Virginia, the response of the church seems curiously one-sided. For example, one of my friends, a pastor, expressed his sadness and anger about the events and that he was grateful for those pastors who stood with the counter-protesters.

Most of what I see on social media are denunciations of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Nazism, and white supremacy, with calls for pastors to use the opportunity to condemn racism. Since the church of Jesus Christ must oppose any kind of racism, this is a good thing.

But my friend’s post implied that Christian pastors were standing with the counter-protestors, and perhaps suggested that other pastors should too, which is alarming. If Christians aren’t careful, they may be pulled into an association they will later regret.

While the white supremacists must be rejected and categorically condemned for their ungodly ideology, the counter-protestors—known collectively as antifa (short for “anti-fascist”)—are just as ungodly. The two groups live at the extremes of our national politics and are really two sides of the same coin. It is unconscionable for a Christian (much less a Christian minister) to join with either movement.

The conflict in Charlottesville originated with a request from Unite the Right, a white nationalist organization, for a permit to hold a rally protesting the removal of the city’s Robert E. Lee statue. White nationalists, like all American citizens, have the right to gather under the auspices of free speech, no matter how repugnant that speech may be.

And repugnant it is. White nationalism, known also as white supremacy, is a relatively small movement that believes white people are superior to all other races. It includes organizations like the KKK, neo-Nazis, and some armed militias.

Also known as the “alt-right” (“alternative right”), adherents are inspired by fascist movements like Benito Mussolini’s in Italy and Adolf Hitler’s in Germany. The Nazi flag was prominent during the Charlottesville protest, as were tiki torches which called to mind the torch-bearing lynch mobs of the late 1800s and early 1900s. The alt-right despises Jewish people, Christian doctrine, and the American Constitution, and embraces Nietzschean philosophy.

White supremacy, white nationalism, neo-Nazis, the KKK, and the alt-right all share the same goal: a whites-only nation that preserves a white culture rooted in its European ancestors. They would say they are fighting the encroachment of foreign cultures that threaten to eventually supplant “white” culture.

Such ideology has no place in our body politic, which was founded on the Lockean idea that “all men are created equal.” It should also go without saying that such sentiment rejects the biblical teaching that mankind was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) and, therefore, all men equally retain a measure of the divine imprint, all are sinners, and all are candidates for salvation, no matter ethnicity or skin color.

In sum, the white supremacist movement is a fringe activist cult that deserves to stay on the margins of society. There must be no uniting with them.

But neither is there uniting with antifa, the anti-fascist movement (sometimes known as the “alt-left”) which is heavily rooted in anarchy and opposition to the state. The September 2017 issue of The Atlantic includes an essay titled, “The Rise of the Violent Left,” in which Peter Beinart writes,

Antifa traces its roots to the 1920s and ’30s, when militant leftists battled fascists in the streets of Germany, Italy, and Spain. When fascism withered after World War II, antifa did too. But in the ’70s and ’80s, neo-Nazi skinheads began to infiltrate Britain’s punk scene. After the Berlin Wall fell, neo-Nazism also gained prominence in Germany. In response, a cadre of young leftists, including many anarchists and punk fans, revived the tradition of street-level antifascism.

…

Since antifa is heavily composed of anarchists, its activists place little faith in the state, which they consider complicit in fascism and racism. They prefer direct action: They pressure venues to deny white supremacists space to meet. They pressure employers to fire them and landlords to evict them. And when people they deem racists and fascists manage to assemble, antifa’s partisans try to break up their gatherings, including by force.

This explains what we saw in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election and what has followed. Members of antifa consider Trump a racist and have lumped conservatives and Republicans in with white nationalists. That’s why Ann Coulter, Ben Shapiro, Gavin McInnes, Katie Pavlich and Ann McElhinney, Charles Murray and other conservatives have encountered sometimes violent protests shutting down their speaking engagements on college campuses.

It also explains the violence at Trump rallies (click here, here, here, and here). This is not a defense of Trump (some of his supporters were no better) but illustrates what is happening in our country and why.

Perhaps the most even assessment of the events in Charlottesville came from Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times, who tweeted, “The hard left seemed as hate-filled as alt-right. I saw club-wielding ‘antifa’ beating white nationalists being led out of the park.”

Further, recall that the antifa counter-protestors were, in essence, defending the removal of Robert E. Lee’s statue. Excising history calls to mind the communists of Stalinist Russia or current U.S. nemesis Kim Jong-un, who airbrushed allies-turned-enemies from photos and purged state records of any evidence they ever existed. Where will such a purge end here in America?  Will Mt. Vernon or the Jefferson memorial be next?

The antifa movement is Marxist in form, emphasizing divisive identity politics and class warfare, and sanctioning the use of violence to subvert authority. They are godless materialists who believe that a socialist utopia can be achieved via their views of diversity, equality, and tolerance, and that violent resistance is necessary to overthrow the established order. Anarchy by definition is opposed to the biblical admonition to be subject to the governing authorities (Romans 13:1).

If allowed to progress, both movements—white nationalism and antifa—ultimately end in dictatorship. Hitler and Stalin may have been enemies in World War II, but the sickle and swastika both oppressed their people, just from different directions.

The truth is obvious: Christians must not make common cause with either movement. Yes, we must oppose racism wherever and whenever we find it, but we must not join a violent, anarchical movement simply because it too opposes racism.

We stand against both racism and anarchy, and we do so in the name of Jesus Christ who submitted himself to the ruling authorities to atone for the sins of all men. And it is to Jesus Christ alone whom we owe our allegiance and obedience.

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With the war on Islamic terrorism being portrayed as a righteous cause in “American Sniper,” the Clint Eastwood film breaking box office records, a book which documents the days when Hollywood was a mouthpiece for communist propaganda might seem out of date. But Allan H. Ryskind’s book, Hollywood Traitors, is a reminder that Hollywood can’t always be counted on to take America’s side in a war, even a World War when the United States faced dictators by the names of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

The Ryskind book, published by Regnery, documents how the much-maligned House Committee on Un-American Activities, known as HUAC, uncovered dramatic communist infiltration of Hollywood and forced the studios to clean house.

Ryskind calls HUAC’s investigation of Hollywood in 1947 and 1950 “one of the most effective, albeit controversial, probes ever carried out by any committee of Congress.” He adds, “HUAC had revealed that Hollywood was packed with Communists and fellow travelers, that the guilds and the unions had been heavily penetrated, and that wartime films, at least, had been saturated with Stalinist propaganda. Red writers were an elite and powerful group in Hollywood—many of them working for major studios.”

He writes that, “HUAC, though bruised by elite opinion, had won the support of the American people and a victory over Hollywood Communists, fellow travelers, and the important liberals who supported them.” Members of Congress involved in HUAC did their jobs, in the face of opposition from “the East coast establishment newspapers” like The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The book reminds us that the Hollywood agents of Stalin had also been “Allies of Hitler,” a threat symbolized on the book cover by a Hollywood director’s chair featuring a Nazi swastika. The Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939-1941 had paved the way for World War II.

As a result of the purging of communists from Hollywood, the so-called “blacklist,” we entered a time, from about 1947 to 1960, when the communists lost control of the major Hollywood unions and “the studios were actually creating anti-Communist pictures,” Ryskind writes. It was a remarkable turnaround.

But while Hollywood did turn anti-communist, at least for a while, the communists scored their own ultimate victory, succeeding in forcing Congress to abolish HUAC. The committee, which had been renamed as the House Internal Security Committee, was the target of what HUAC called the Communist Party’s “Cold War against congressional investigation of subversion.”

For many years, there was a comparable body in the Senate, which went by different names but tackled such matters as “Castro’s Network in the United States,” a 1963 investigation into the “Fair Play for Cuba Committee” that we later learned included JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

To those insisting it was somehow inappropriate to ask Hollywood figures about their “political beliefs,” Ryskind counters that “Few questions could have been more important for a congressional committee to ask than whether American citizens were actually serving as agents of a hostile foreign government.” He said HUAC was engaging in hearings designed to accurately disclose membership in the Communist Party, “a subversive organization controlled by an enemy nation and designed to turn America into a Communist country…”

In its battle against communism, HUAC had subpoena power and was not afraid to use it. HUAC also issued contempt citations against those who refused to testify completely and truthfully. All of the members of the so-called “Hollywood Ten,” who refused to testify about their involvement in the Communist Party, eventually went to prison.

Ryskind cites estimates that over 200 Hollywood Communists were named in this process. His book provides the Communist Party card numbers of the Hollywood Ten as well as the names of other “well-known radicals,” many of them overt Communists, who were active in the movie industry.

Bring Back HUAC?

Today, with dozens of leading conservatives now clamoring for congressional action to “Stop the Fundamental Transformation of America,” the Ryskind book may add to the impetus for Congress to reestablish a HUAC-style panel. The George Soros-funded Center for American Progress (CAP) acted frightened and alarmed in 2010 when Rep. Steve King (R-IA) expressed agreement with my suggestion at that time that re-establishment of such a committee would be a good idea. “I think that is a good process and I would support it,” he said.

The oath of office for members of Congress requires that they support and defend the Constitution of the United States “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” HUAC is a model for how such a problem can be identified and confronted.

Donald I. Sweany, Jr., a research analyst for the House Committee on Un-American Activities and its successor, the House Committee on Internal Security, sees the need for such a committee. He has issued this statement:

“The re-creation of the House Committee on Internal Security will provide the Congress of the United States, Executive Branch agencies and the public with essential and actionable information concerning the dangerous and sovereignty-threatening subversive activities currently plaguing America. This subversion emulates from a host of old and new entities of Marxist/Communist revolutionary organizations and allied militant and radical groups, some of which have foreign connections. A new mandated House Committee on Internal Security is of great importance because it would once again recommend to Congress remedial legislative action to crack down on any un-American forces whose goals are to weaken and destroy the freedoms which America enjoys under the Constitution. In addition, this legislative process will provide public exposure of such subversives.”

Ryskind’s father, Marx Brothers screenwriter Morrie Ryskind, testified before HUAC about communist penetration of Hollywood that he had learned about first-hand through his involvement with the Screen Writers Guild. Morrie Ryskind had attended the Columbia School of Journalism in New York and written for Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper World. But he underwent a political transformation, from an anti-war socialist who became disillusioned with FDR to a Republican determined to stop the communist advance. He wrote for conservative publications such as Human Events and National Review, which he helped William F. Buckley Jr. launch.

Morrie Ryskind helped found the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals to counteract the work of the communists and educate the American people about what was at stake. The Ryskind book also notes how the American Legion and various Catholic organizations were focusing attention on Hollywood’s far-left elements and making the public aware of this problem.

The book includes Allan Ryskind’s memories of his Hollywood upbringing, including meeting famous people such as top Communist Party leader Benjamin Gitlow. He spent decades as editor of Human Events, which was President Ronald Reagan’s favorite paper. It also became known for its aggressive reporting on the communist and socialist threats. Reagan so appreciated the weekly paper that he had arranged for copies to be sent to him personally at the White House residence.

Ryskind, who still serves as Human Events editor-at-large, documents the development of Reagan’s anti-communism in Hollywood Traitors. Reagan began his acting career as a liberal who got involved in Communist-front activities, later realizing that the “nice-sounding” groups he was supporting were secretly controlled by members of the Communist Party. He carried this understanding and analysis of the communist threat into his presidency and talked openly about the growing Marxist influence in Congress as he battled with congressional liberals and tried to stop the Soviet advance in Latin America.

In fact, as President, he told journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave in a 1987 interviewthat “I’ve been a student of the communist movement for a long time, having been a victim of it some years ago in Hollywood.” He said that he regarded some two dozen Marxists in Congress as “a problem we have to face.”

The problem is far worse today. Analyst Trevor Loudon now counts the number of Marxists in Congress at more than 60, a fact that would seem to make it more of a controversy to re-establish HUAC, but even more of a reason to do so. All it would take is more courageous members like Rep. King, backed by the House Leadership. Such a committee would be able to seriously analyze an area that remains off-limits to the House Homeland Security Committee, the House Intelligence Committee, and the Select Committee on Benghazi—subversive infiltration of the highest levels of the U.S. government, including the White House and Congress.

One key to HUAC’s success was finding those in Hollywood, including in the unions, willing to name names and identify the subversives. Reagan testified before HUAC and took a leadership role in defeating communist influence in the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), later becoming the union’s president. Labor leader Roy Brewer was another effective anti-communist in Hollywood highlighted in Ryskind’s book.

Although the 506-page book is based on HUAC hearings, Ryskind conducted independent research that adds to his case against the Hollywood traitors. For example, he combed through the historical papers of one major Hollywood-Ten figure, the Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who refused to cooperate with HUAC and expose his comrades. Ryskind reports on an unpublished script Trumbo wrote that treated the invasion of South Korea as a “fight for independence” for the communist north.

Trumbo wrote many excellent film scripts, including Roman Holiday, but was “a hard-core Party member, a fervent supporter of Stalinist Russia and Kim Il-sung’s North Korea, and an apologist for Nazi Germany until Hitler double-crossed Stalin and invaded the Soviet union,” Ryskind notes. “Yet to this day he is regarded as a hero in Hollywood.”

Almost on cue, as Ryskind’s book was being published, it was reported that Hollywood is planning a new film which glorifies Trumbo, starring Bryan Cranston of “Breaking Bad” fame as the screenwriter. The battle over communist influence is slated to return for another act.

Love for Cuban Communism

The book’s chapter, “Hollywood Today,” tries to bring the communism problem up to date by examining Hollywood’s love affair with the longtime Stalinist ruler of Cuba, Fidel Castro. He writes that much of Hollywood “is still lured by the romance of Marxism, and its films are still filled with heavy doses of anti-American propaganda.”

More details are provided in Humberto Fontova’s excellent books, Fidel: Hollywood ‘s Favorite Tyrant and The Longest Romance: The Mainstream Media and Fidel Castro.

I recently asked Fontova why a Stalinist like Castro gets fawning treatment, while the Stalinist North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, is ridiculed in the movie The Interview. “My best guess is that it’s a generational thing, nostalgia mostly,” he told this writer. The Castros and Che Guevara, he said, are perceived as “the first hippies” or beatniks.

Indeed, The Longest Romance quotes The New York Times reporter who helped bring Castro to power, Herbert Matthews, as saying, “Castro’s is a revolution of youth.” Fontova adds, “The notion of Castro’s Cuba as a stiflingly Stalinist nation never quite caught on among the enlightened. Instead the island often inspires hazy visions of a vast commune, rock-fest or Occupy encampment, studded with free health care clinics and with [the hippie icon] Wavy Gravy handing out love-beads at the entrance.”

Perhaps the pro-Castro influence in Hollywood is something that a new HUAC might want to tackle.

Another issue worth investigating is how Hollywood has also come under the influence of radical Islam. For example, the 2002 film, “The Sum of All Fears,” which was the movie version of the Tom Clancy book of the same name, replaced the Arab terrorist villains with neo-Nazis so as not to offend the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate. The Fox network responded to complaints about its popular series “24” depicting Muslims in America secretly plotting terrorism by running public service announcements from CAIR portraying American Muslims as moderate and peaceful.

The book, Council on American-Islamic Relations: Its Use of Lawfare and Intimidation, has an entire chapter on how CAIR attempts to silence its critics in radio, television, and the film industry.

There will be those in Congress and the media who will argue against the return of anything resembling the old HUAC, contending that “McCarthyism,” or the anti-communist “witchhunt,” is the greater danger. The truth about McCarthy’s investigations is provided in the M. Stanton Evans book, Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight against America’s Enemies.

It bears repeating that Senator McCarthy never had anything to do with the House committee or its investigation of Hollywood.

This book is a valuable contribution to understanding a dangerous time in American history when America’s elected representatives and the people themselves rallied to the defense of their homeland against these foreign and domestic enemies.

While it is worth noting that the veteran Hollywood actor and director Clint Eastwood has bypassed the censors at CAIR with “American Sniper,” this kind of film is the exception and not the rule. The film portrays the great sacrifices being made by U.S. military personnel in the Middle East as they combat an enemy that is depicted as savage and barbaric. It is based on the life of Chris Kyle, an Iraq War veteran and Navy SEAL who joined the Armed Forces to defend his country from Islamic terrorism.

Zaid Jilani, a “progressive” writer who left the Center for American Progress after being charged with anti-Semitism, has emerged as one of the film’s most vocal critics. A regular on the Kremlin channel Russia Today (RT) and the Muslim Brotherhood’s Al Jazeera, he insists the film about the “remorseless” sharpshooter has sparked “anti-Muslim bigotry,” and he complains about it becoming “a rallying point for the political right.”

However, he admits that Eastwood’s skill as a filmmaker could result in a “Best Picture” award for “American Sniper” and “Best Actor in a Leading Role” award for Bradley Cooper, who plays Kyle. He just can’t bring himself to admit that the pro-military and anti-terrorist message is also a major factor in its success. TheAcademy Awards take place on February 22.

Indeed, this is the fear from the modern-day “progressives”—that Hollywood will rediscover the box office appeal of American patriotism.

But according to the annual Reuters/Ipsos Oscars poll, if ordinary Americans voted for the Academy Awards, “American Sniper” would be the Best Picture winner. Those who wonder why we don’t get more pro-military and pro-American movies out of Hollywood should read Ryskind’s new book.

This article was originally posted at the Accuracy in Media website.

There seems to be a disturbing new trend that must be yet one more tragic effect of widespread postmodernism (truth is left up to each individual to define).   A new documentary film shown at the Sundance Film Festival about late term abortions called, After Tiller has some astonishing admissions from a pro-abortion propaganda piece.
 
One of the late term abortionists profiled in the movies, Dr. Shelley Sella, actually uses the term “baby” to speak of the unborn children she terminates. The director mentions how her patients go on “grieving the loss of their child.” But it doesn’t stop there. Dr. Susan Robinson recounts what she tells her patients:

“Look, of course you don’t want an abortion. Nobody wants an abortion. You have three choices: You can have a kid that you say you can’t take good care of; you can have a kid and give it to somebody else, who you know or don’t know; or you can have an abortion, which you think is the wrong thing to do. Those are your three choices. They all suck.”  

Well, there are millions of parents and children who would vehemently disagree that the choices of adoption or having a baby “suck,” or are in any way comparable to abortion.  
 
Still, this is nothing compared to the recent article in the liberal Salon magazine in which a screeching feminist named Mary Elizabeth Williams actually says:

“I know that throughout my own pregnancies, I never wavered for a moment in the belief that I was carrying a human life inside of me. I believe that’s what a fetus is: a human life. And that doesn’t make me one iota less solidly pro-choice.
 
Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her.” 

Wow!  “Abortion takes the life of a baby, but that is secondary to my own desire and agenda!!”  Well, at least they are finally being honest.
 
You can bet that these folks all believe they are far more advanced, enlightened, good and more moral than the notorious dictators of the last century. Still, it is hard not to see that this is the very same logic every mass murdered of the 20^th Century used from Joseph Stalin to Adolf Hitler to Pol Pot, each of whom also claimed his superiority and justifications too.