Transforming America

After hearing the comments at a press conference by the four "progressive young women of color" (Congresswomen Omar, Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, and Tlaib) three things were crystal clear: 1.) These people hate traditional America; 2) they blanket themselves with victimhood and race in an attempt to win favor; and 3) they are a product of several generations of progressive anti-American teaching in our schools and culture.

Some have said that there are not enough American voters in this country who would follow the lead of these four socialist America-haters. I would tend to agree with that but I would add one word: "Yet."

There are not YET enough voters who want to, in the words of Barak Obama, fundamentally transform the United States of America. But this can very well change, and faster than you think.

As I've stated in many columns over the years, the Left has over the course of more than four decades successfully taken control of our schools, our publications, our news media, our culture through the arts and entertainment, and yes even our houses of worship.

So it isn't surprising why so many today, particularly the younger generations, have leaned left. What IS surprising is that the U.S. hasn't gone totally socialist by now.

In order to succeed, the Left must not only push their socialistic policies, they must tear down the basic tenets on which America was built and they have been working on it for more than 40 years. They teach the youth to hate America and hate the men who founded it.

If history is taught at all, it is a revisionist history, an anti-patriotic view of our history.

All these elements (school, the press, entertainment, clergy) work in tandem to fully indoctrinate people. I'm hardly the only one to see the danger ahead for our country. Many have seen this coming for a long time, most notably President Reagan. It is especially timely, I believe, to recall what Reagan said more than 30 years ago.

In a speech given on July 6, 1987:

"It is time that we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers and if we will pass on to these young people the freedoms we knew in our youth, because freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. It has to be fought for and defended by each generation."

And in his farewell address to the nation on Jan. 11, 1989 President Reagan said this in his summation:

"Finally, there is a great tradition of warnings in Presidential farewells, and I've got one that's been on my mind for some time. But oddly enough it starts with one of the things I'm proudest of in the past 8 years: the resurgence of national pride that I called the new patriotism. This national feeling is good, but it won't count for much, and it won't last unless it's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge.

"An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-sixties.

"But now, we're about to enter the nineties, and some things have changed. Younger parents aren't sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom -- freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs protection.

"So, we've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion but what's important -- why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, 4 years ago on the 40th anniversary of D - day, I read a letter from a young woman writing to her late father, who'd fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, "We will always remember, we will never forget what the boys of Normandy did." Well, let's help her keep her word. If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. I'm warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit. Let's start with some basics: more attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual."

Reagan's words have never been more apropos and disturbingly prophetic than are today.

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JWR contributor Greg Crosby, former creative head for Walt Disney publications, has written thousands of comics, hundreds of children's books, dozens of essays, and a letter to his congressman. He's been a JWR contributor since 1999.