A Message For All Conservatives, All Americans

From Family Security Matters:

Exclusive: A Message from Cassandra

Rita Kramer

Well, we’ve dodged one bullet. A single-payer health care system seems defeated – for the time being. But the temporary success of this one effort to stand against the Obama agenda of government control of the lives and fortunes of Americans still leaves a long string of battles ahead.

While it’s become increasingly clear to more and more Americans – even some of those who were swept away by eloquence and dissembling during the campaign – just what they bought with their votes last November, there are still a lot of supporters who sympathize with his plans for this country.

The left, like the poor, will always be with us. There are those Utopians who believe that the all-knowing state will bring about perfect equality among men (women and children included) and that it’s their job to see that their vision is imposed on those of us not smart enough to agree. There are those who think communism/socialism (take your pick) is a great idea but just hasn’t ever been given a fair trial. There are those whose sense of identity is not that of an individual but of a member of some group and who will vote for anyone of the same skin color, gender, ethnicity (take your pick again). Obama is their man and no amount of reasoned argument is going to sway them.

There are those on the right (we know who we are) who took note of Obama’s lack of any real accomplishments, his longstanding associations with radicals, racial demagogues, and machine politicians, and weren’t impressed with his eloquent speeches promising hope (for what?) and change (to what?). Well, now we know. And it’s cold comfort to have been right about the man. Or to have perceived how the main stream media, led by the execrable New York Times, failed to report on any of the facts about his background and associations that might have given pause for thought to those undecided voters who would possibly have made different decisions if they had been given the information that was available all along but was spiked, as it continues to be, by the Times and the rest of the left-leaning press.

When, by the way, did reporters become “journalists,” men and women not with a job but with a mission, not there to report the available facts but to pick and choose which were “fit to print”? The MSM were so enamored of their “liberal” candidate that any imbalance was justified if it got him elected. It did, but don’t look to them for any recognition of the mess they’ve helped get us into.

And it’s a mess that’s not going to be straightened out soon. Yes, the government-imposed public health system idea is under siege – for the moment. But there are plenty of other areas ripe for taking over by a government that thinks it knows better what’s good for the people than the people do themselves. One of them is education. This administration’s “czars,” unelected bosses who’ve been put in charge of every area of national life by fiat, no Congressional confirmation required, no accountability to anyone but the star himself, are there to implement the policies the Obama administration – think Rahm Emmanuel, for one – would like to see in place. And these Obama lieutenants are not fools. They know a thing or two about hearts and minds. For one thing, that minds will follow hearts. Obama’s popular appeal, part charming persona and part proof that we are not racists – see, we’ve elected a man of color – wins hearts. To solidify their hold on the public mind, though, something more is required. And it is already underway in the country’s schools, where multiculturalism has been firmly established. It only remains for the Federal government to acquire more and more say in what goes on in the nation’s schools, bypassing state and local control.

Money talks. And it will have more and more to say about what our children are taught as the feds exercise their mandate to provide money to the states through the “stimulus” bill. The bill is a Trojan Horse, and what spills out of it will not prove a gift. In the case of education, money will be available for programs the Department of Education looks on with favor. Under this administration they promise there will be further emphasis on tests designed to demonstrate improvement. Prepping for the ubiquitous tests has already displaced the time and effort once devoted to literature, history and the arts. Most strikingly, it has displaced what used to be called “civics,” understanding how our democratic institutions came about, how they were structured, and how they are supposed to operate. Don’t count on an administration bent on subverting the balance of powers to encourage study of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution or the history of our national life of which we can and should be proud. Instead, our children are taught that all cultures are equally valuable – but some are less valuable than others. And that our own is characterized by oppression and exploitation.

An impoverished curriculum and tests designed to show how well the system is doing rather than how much and how well children are learning – the dumbing down of the schools and the consequent spiraling downward of the culture – are to what increased Federal control of education has led. Expect more of the same as local school boards and parents are increasingly sidelined by government directives.

Whether it’s health care, the economy, or education, the power grab by the Obama administration will attempt to succeed by increments. If they can’t put an overall policy through, they can introduce and enforce regulations that will eventually accomplish the ends sought. And it will happen without clarification from the press, totally compromised by its enthusiasm for Obama and his agenda.

Those of us who saw it coming can say we told you so and retire into bitterness, or we can try again to make the conservative case and wake the public, already beginning to rub its eyes and wonder where it’s been, to the dangers ahead. Vigilance is the word.

Let’s be very careful, read the small print, and let our elected officials know how strongly we feel about their failure to read the legislation they pass and their acquiescence in the march toward statism. There may still be time to halt it in its tracks.