TOTALITARIANISM AND THE AMERICAN EDUCATION SYSTEM
Posted on February 14, 2012
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Should faith oriented education system is responsible for totalitarianism of education?
Totalitarianism and the American Education System
Monday, 13 February 2012 12:22 Ray Peach
On February 8th, 2012, Bishop McFadden (b. 1947) of the Diocese of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, commented on the demand that all students be taught exactly what the state wants, without exception. He went on to say, “In the totalitarian government, they would love our system. This is what Hitler and Mussolini and all of them tried to establish — a monolith; so all the children would be educated in one set of beliefs and one way of doing things.” Of course the usual suspects, such as the ACLU, immediately attacked Bishop McFadden for making such a comparison. In response the Bishop apologized for offending anyone; but he did not retreat from his point saying:
“The reference to dictators and totalitarian governments of the 20th century which I made in an interview on the topic of school choice was to make a dramatic illustration of how these unchecked monolithic governments of the past used schools to curtail the primary responsibility of the parent in the education of their children. Today many parents in our state experience the same sort of lack of freedom in choosing an education that bests suits their child as those parents oppressed by dictators of the past.
On February 8th, 2012, Bishop McFadden (b. 1947) of the Diocese of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, commented on the demand that all students be taught exactly what the state wants, without exception. He went on to say, “In the totalitarian government, they would love our system. This is what Hitler and Mussolini and all of them tried to establish — a monolith; so all the children would be educated in one set of beliefs and one way of doing things.” Of course the usual suspects, such as the ACLU, immediately attacked Bishop McFadden for making such a comparison. In response the Bishop apologized for offending anyone; but he did not retreat from his point saying:
“The reference to dictators and totalitarian governments of the 20th century which I made in an interview on the topic of school choice was to make a dramatic illustration of how these unchecked monolithic governments of the past used schools to curtail the primary responsibility of the parent in the education of their children. Today many parents in our state experience the same sort of lack of freedom in choosing an education that bests suits their child as those parents oppressed by dictators of the past.
I used the example of the dictators merely to explain how an absolute monopoly in education, where parents do not have a right or ability to choose the education that best suits their children due to economic circumstances or otherwise, runs counter to a free and open society. Our support of a school voucher program has the goal of giving parents something that dictators never would, a choice in which school their children attend by being able to control the portion of the tax dollars that is designated for the education of each child.”
As it turns out, Bishop McFadden is more correct than he may know, as our current system of education came from the very totalitarian regimes he speaks of. In fact the word totalitarianism refers to a system of government where the state dictates every aspect of human behavior and achieves this largely through the education system, which becomes a political apparatus of the state.
“Religion, family, state, law, morality, science, art, etc. are only particular modes, of production and come under its general law. The positive suppression (Aufhebung) of private property as the appropriation of human life, is therefore the positive suppression (Aufhebung) of all alienation, and therefore the return of people out of religion, family, state, etc. into his human, i.e. social existence.”
“Religion, family, state, law, morality, science, art, etc. are only particular modes, of production and come under its general law. The positive suppression (Aufhebung) of private property as the appropriation of human life, is therefore the positive suppression (Aufhebung) of all alienation, and therefore the return of people out of religion, family, state, etc. into his human, i.e. social existence.”
– Karl Marx
n the 1950s, Obama’s mentor Zbigniew Brzezinski (b. 1928) said that the totalitarian socialist dictatorship is greatly concerned with the transmission of its power and ideology to the younger generation. In fact, it is with the young that socialism hangs its hope, constantly asserting that the future belongs to the youth. Because the youth have no personal knowledge of or commitment to the past, the state is unrestrained in identifying and characterizing failures and successes of yesterday, or of the utopian superiority of tomorrow. Stalin agreed with Hitler and Mussolini when he said:
“The youth is our future, our hope, comrades. The youth must take our place, the place of the old people. It must carry our banner to final victory. Among the peasants there are not a few old people, borne down by the burden of the past, burdened with the habits and the recollections of the old life. Naturally, they are not always able to keep pace with the party, to keep pace with the Soviet government. But that cannot be said of our youth. They are free from the burden of the past, and it is easiest for them to assimilate Lenin’s behests.”
Fascist Italy’s national hymn was called Giovinezza and is Italian for, “The Youth.” The hymn calls on the young to swear personal loyalty to Mussolini, the father of the people. In April of 1926, the youth group called the Italian Balillawas formed as an adjunct to the Fascist Party (Italian Socialism) for the indoctrination of the young. The law that established it declared that Fascism considers the education of youth to be one of the fundamental tasks of the revolution, in an “atmosphere of discipline and service to the nation.” In 1936, Hitler would use the same arguments when he enacted the “National Youth Law” creating the Hitlerjugend, or Hitler Youth, stating that, “the totality of German youth must be prepared for its future duties.” Both organizations aspired to achieve total control of the youth, and by 1939 both Germany and Italy had made membership mandatory.
In Soviet Russia the Komsomol, the “Communist Union of Youth,” placed emphasis on indoctrinating the young so as to be liberated by making them conscious of their role and position in the state. What all three youth organizations had in common was party indoctrination, while serving as a proving ground where the next generation of the party elite could be identified, selected, and groomed.
These are very different organizations from the ones found in free countries such as the boy scouts and other religious or artistic youth organizations. While traditional Western organizations use many of the same slogans, they are, in fact, very different as they stress the development of personal character, individual improvement, and an allegiance to the family and Church.
The Komsomol, Hitlerjugend, and Balliia all worked to organize and indoctrinate the child at the earliest possible age. To better facilitate this, the state needs to transform the educational process itself into a school for socialist ideology. The entire educational system becomes an adjunct to the propaganda efforts of the regime, and is perverted to this purpose in ever-larger measure as the totalitarian nature of the dictatorship unfolds.
Socialist Education and Political Indoctrination
The Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (1891 – 1937) said that no political regime can last without a certain degree of effective cooperation from most of its members; in fact, the development of this loyalty has traditionally been the concern of all governments. Aristotle emphasized this when he addressed the “making of citizens” in his book, Politics. To this end there is a vital difference between employing the educational system to teach the youth how “to think for themselves,” and using education for the purpose of forcing all those who come within its grip to think alike, as Aristotle proposed.
The Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (1891 – 1937) said that no political regime can last without a certain degree of effective cooperation from most of its members; in fact, the development of this loyalty has traditionally been the concern of all governments. Aristotle emphasized this when he addressed the “making of citizens” in his book, Politics. To this end there is a vital difference between employing the educational system to teach the youth how “to think for themselves,” and using education for the purpose of forcing all those who come within its grip to think alike, as Aristotle proposed.
A study of Soviet Russia, Hitler’s Germany, and Mussolini’s Italy shows that totalitarian governments begin indoctrination at an early age, stripping away individual thought and family influence, replacing it with political indoctrination delivered by party loyalists. Criticism is not permitted and teachers and pupils alike are continually exposed to pressures originating from the state. Eventually, more and more teachers become absorbed into the movement, often by formal recruitment into the party itself. Over time the distinction between education and propaganda becomes increasingly blurred, so that education, like ideology, becomes an instrument in the hands of the regime that takes upon itself the definition of truth.
The Soviet Education System
There is a story told of a teacher who had not yet adapted himself to Communist ideology, who set the following problem in arithmetic to his students: “If a man bought a barrel of apples for 30 rubles and sold it for 70, what would he get?” Quick came the pat answer, “Three Years of Jail.”
An understanding of today’s education system in America first requires an understanding of the Soviet education system. In Russia, universal education began in 1631 when the Orthodox Catholic Church created a series of schools with its own funds, starting with the ecclesiastical academy that was founded in Kiev. In 1782, Catherine the Great expanded on this by introducing free universal education, paid for by the crown. She used as her inspiration the inclusive education system she saw growing in America. Eventually, the elite saw these schools as a threat and looked to replace them with schools tailored for the elite. The last thing they wanted was an educated lower class.
In 1864, the Russian Emperor Alexander II (1818 – 1881) created a form of local commune called the Zemstva, which was administered by Nikolay Milyutin (1818 – 1872), also known as “The Red.” As an “Orthodox Socialist,” Milyutin began to replace the Christian based schools with “progressive” schools, by confiscating Church property and killing off the clergy. His ultimate objective was the destruction of not only the Russian Orthodox Church; but also the Catholic Church in Poland, as part of a plan to destroy Poland herself.
Primary and secondary education came under the control of the central government and the minister of education, who appointed autocratic curators that arranged curricula, appointed inspectors, and dictated the methods of teaching. Unlike the Catholic schools, which Milyutin failed to eradicate, attendance was restricted to the children of the elite.
After the Bolshevik revolution, Russia would import educational ideas from socialists in the West and modify them for use in the Soviet Union. The person who would do this was Anatoly Lunacharsky, who is discussed in chapter 7 of the book.
After the Bolshevik revolution, Russia would import educational ideas from socialists in the West and modify them for use in the Soviet Union. The person who would do this was Anatoly Lunacharsky, who is discussed in chapter 7 of the book.
One of Lenin’s utopian platitudes stated, In order to bring education within reach of everybody it had to be free. He said that the working class suffered because education was restricted to the children of bourgeois parents who could pay for it. Of course, this totally misrepresented the education provided by the Church and by Catherine the Great, which was available to everyone for free. It wasn’t the Church or the middle class that restricted education. It was the Zemstva and its socialist belief in the elite that caused the problem.
While the Church was based on a classless belief that everyone is equal in the eyes of God, Lenin represented that just the opposite was true. What the Bolsheviks did was to blame the failure of education on the Church, ignoring the role that had been played by socialism, calling on Marxism to provide the solution, just as Obama is doing today. The Bolsheviks went on to extend what Milyutin had started; creating a class-oriented society consisting of a ruling elite, an elitist bureaucracy, and a working class – collectively called a plutocracy. Lenin said it would take several generations of right education to eradicate the marks and signs of superstition and oppression, saying, “Culture and a high moral standards cannot be produced in a night, nor can children be given a complete Communist education except by Communist parents and teachers.”
In the Soviet system, the kind of education that each child received was the result of whom their parents were, assuming they received any education at all. The children of millions of disfranchised kulaks (middle class business owners), priests, engineers, and scientists, were not allowed to attend school at all.
The children of the working class received little to no education. Instead each industry provided training that was sufficient to work in a factory or in the field. Each factory had an apprentice school to support the industrial centers, and each Soviet state or collective was required to provide a school for peasant youth.
Pre-School Education
In Soviet Russia, children were under the care of the Commissariat of Health from birth until four years of age. They were then entered into the nursery infant school, under the care of the Commissariat of Education. At this point, the children of factory workers were placed into the care of a factory apprentice school, where the children were raised by a school staff consisting of: a director, teachers, a mistress of methods, a psychologist, a cultural supervisor, a doctor, and a nurse. There was also a technical staff consisting of cooks, maids, and cleaners. The purpose of the factory schools was to train youth for industry, and children were selected for various levels of training depending on the jobs they were to be assigned. While the factory apprentice schools trained elementary grade workers, there were technical schools that provided intermediate technical and professional training as well. About half of the training these children received was for industry and half for political propaganda, while time not spent in the classroom was spent under the direction of the Komsomol (Young Communist League).
In the Soviet system the working class was expected to work, and by the age of seven most children were at work, where they would labor until they died or were no longer needed, in which case they would be disposed of. Today this has become the centerpiece of China Inc. where young workers are taught enough to work in a factory where they are treated as slave labor. When these workers are no longer needed, they are simply turned loose to starve.
Like in China today, the children of the Soviet elite received a completely different education that prepared them to manage the country. After leaving the Commissariat of Health, children of the elite would enter a communist version of a preschool where they would spend nights with their parents. When these children entered what we would call grade school, it was with the understanding that they would receive a more substantial education. In addition to math and physics, these children would receive lectures in Marxism, and other aspects of the socialist faith, including sexuality. They were also taught how to spy on each other, their teachers, and on their parents, while teachers would inspect and report on the condition of the parent’s home.
A form of discipline was a large sheet of paper that was mounted on the wall called the “Wall Newspaper,” which was edited by a committee of children chosen from the Young Pioneer (Junior Communist) organization. The paper was used to openly ridicule fellow students who did not believe properly, or whose conduct didn’t comply with the Marxist religion – in and out of the classroom.
Education at all levels instilled politics into all subjects, often at the expense of teaching the subjects themselves. The walls of schools were decorated with political posters depicting slogans, while school songs were about completing the five-year plan in four. History was rewritten, providing information about foreign countries that was blatantly false, where pre revolutionary Russia was demeaned, and post-revolutionary Russia was glorified. The young were required to recite hymns to further the socialist faith and the Stalin cult such as:
“O great Stalin, O leader of the peoples,
Thou who broughtest man to birth,
Thou who purifiest the earth,
Thou who restorest the centuries,
Thou who makes bloom the Spring,
Thou who makes vibrate the musical chords.
Thou, splendor of my Spring,
O Thou Sun reflected from millions of hearts.”
Today we see the same kind of hymns being sung to Barack Obama, while socialist propaganda adorns the walls of our schools – including environmental paganism.
“O great Stalin, O leader of the peoples,
Thou who broughtest man to birth,
Thou who purifiest the earth,
Thou who restorest the centuries,
Thou who makes bloom the Spring,
Thou who makes vibrate the musical chords.
Thou, splendor of my Spring,
O Thou Sun reflected from millions of hearts.”
Today we see the same kind of hymns being sung to Barack Obama, while socialist propaganda adorns the walls of our schools – including environmental paganism.
In totalitarian states, admissions, grades, and advancements were determined by who the student’s parents were, or for other political considerations, while test scores were not given as a result of how well a student did, but by the political needs of the state, much like affirmative action in America.
Teachers were not allowed to teach Western economics or Christian religion; but were required to teach communist economics and religion, calling it atheism. This included the building god movement, where men shall be as gods, socialist moral values, and other aspects of the Marxist / Leninist faith. In 1936, when a new Constitution was promulgated, Stalin announced that the “exploiting class” had ceased to exist, and that everyone was now equal; but it was a boldfaced lie, as he was the exploiting class.
Today America’s schools and teachers have become ardent believers in the socialist faith, preaching the social gospel of the state, while treating parents as the enemy. More and more school districts have given up on teaching students anything of value, so long as there is a poster of Obama on the wall, surrounded by propaganda and slogans regarding sexuality and environmentalism. This isn’t a question of how our country is becoming a Socialist Totalitarian Dictatorship, but how we became one, and what needs to be done about it.
While I agree strongly with Bishop McFadden’s depiction of our education system, I don’t believe he should have apologized to anyone. As Christians we need to stop apologizing when the truth offends the purveyors of evil, such as the ACLU. We need to stand up for our faith, the greatest force for good in the history of the world. We need to speak out against socialism, the faith of destruction – responsible for more deaths than any other force in history.
Read the Book
If you would like to learn more, including how the totalitarian method of education came to America, read the book:Totalitarianism: How the Socialist Faith is Destroying America. This article is about 2,500 words, while volume 1 of the book is over 160,000 words – providing a lot more information.
Information contained in the book will challenge almost everything you believe to be true. It describes an ongoing war between Hebrew-Christianity and Socialism, between Good and Evil, and why America is currently losing that war. Central to this description is a documented assertion that Socialism is a faith, the only definition that explains its actions.
If you would like to learn more, including how the totalitarian method of education came to America, read the book:Totalitarianism: How the Socialist Faith is Destroying America. This article is about 2,500 words, while volume 1 of the book is over 160,000 words – providing a lot more information.
Information contained in the book will challenge almost everything you believe to be true. It describes an ongoing war between Hebrew-Christianity and Socialism, between Good and Evil, and why America is currently losing that war. Central to this description is a documented assertion that Socialism is a faith, the only definition that explains its actions.
A product of 7 years of research, the book presents a view of our nation, world, and history that is unique because it provides something you have probably never heard before, the truth. Unfortunately, the truth is often hard to swallow; but if you want to accept the same old party line, or believe that things are just fine as they are, continue doing what you are doing. If not, this book will help you understand what is happening, and what to do about it. Remember, once the magician’s secret is revealed, the illusion no longer holds any sway. Learn More
If you like Ray’s article, read his book click here to read more
If you like Ray’s article, read his book click here to read more
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