George Rebane
*** Readers know my position on our country’s teachers’ unions. They are the documented scourge to education and America’s youth. Now two more examples of these rotten organizations are making headlines in selected news media (forget the lamestream). In Louisiana the state’s second largest teachers’ union is suing the state for a new law that allows parents to use vouchers to send their children to functioning schools. Vowing to use ‘whatever means necessary’, the unions would rather see kids in perennially failing schools than having them being taught to read, write, and reckon by non-union teachers (more here).
In New York ‘Teachers Unions Go to Bat for Sexual Predators’ writes Campbell Brown. As long as the teachers faithfully pay their union dues, they enjoy a wink-wink and nod from the unions even if they explicitly solicit oral sex from their female students. It goes down from there. And yet the unions’ acolytes unabashedly argue (even on these pages) the absolute necessity for such organizations that have now destroyed two, going on three, generations of education for America’s young people.
*** I am a longtime witness to my Christian faith being whitewashed out of American culture. Unfortunately, my brethren in the comfort Christian community have no such worries or apprehensions. As long as their local social club pays its non-specific obeisances to the Lord, and does a modicum of good work in the community, then all is well. Theological pursuits are frowned upon as being a potential death knell to their dominant kumbayah philosophical underpinnings. Even more excluded are any considerations of the worldwide assault on Christianity.
Ben Cohen and Keith Roderick in the 30jul12 WSJ point out that over 100 million Christians worldwide live in extreme persecution by their ruling regimes and neighbors of other faiths. As Sharansky championed Soviet jewry and Mandela fought South African racism, so does Youcef Nadarkhani champion persecuted Christians from an Iranian jail cell where he is under a death sentence for apostasy. Sharansky and Mandela received constant support from the lamestream and friendly NGOs until they prevailed. Nadarkhani’s mission and plight are mentioned nowhere in the proceedings of the Vatican, national religious conferences, down to the Christian churches on the corner.
Today all faiths can be championed save Christianity. It is clear why the lamestream ignores Nadarkhani. But as their numbers understandably shrink, why do America’s Christians also turn their backs?
*** Finally, if you ever want to see what years of progressivism will do to a vibrant economy, well-educated workforce, and a productive society located in arguably the best geography available on God’s green earth, then look no further than our own California. RR has sought to alert its readers to the tragedy that is raining down on the once Golden State. The Left sees none of this, and keeps voting in politicians selected from a mind boggling cadre of the most ignorant and pernicious.
The tipping point among the state’s electorate was passed long ago. Today California is in the bag for all collectivist causes, and guaranteed to stay there by voters making up more than one third of the nation’s population on the dole. These people are undereducated beyond belief, and vote strictly on the basis of race or who promises them the biggest ice cream cone.
A more comprehensive description of the state’s downfall and status is given by Victor Davis Hanson in his 29jul12 piece ‘California: The Road Warrior is Here’. This is what awaits any population that accepts the precepts of socialism, and uses them to fashion public policies that punish individual effort and liberty. It is a must read for all who are still in doubt as to what has happened here in the last decades. (H/T to Russ Steele for beating me to this essay on his blog.)
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