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Homeland Security links Homeschoolers
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“The public school establishment hates homeschoolers.
They’ve smeared the movement as a conspiracy of conservative
Christian zealots…. They’ve painted homeschooling parents as uneducated and negligent.
And now, under the guise of preparing students for a violent terrorist attack, educators in one public school district are casting homeschoolers as bomb-detonating militants.”[1]
Michelle Malkin
On September 20, the Department of
Homeland Security sponsored a mock assault on a school bus. The
fictitious terrorists who
supposedly planted a bomb on a school bus
were portrayed as a group of homeschooling radicals labeled “Wackos
Against Schools and Education.” The
Muskegon Chronicle described this unforgettable role-playing
scenario dramatized by local students:“Muskegon County officials
want to be prepared in case the unthinkable happens here. So
it was that 25 students … found themselves crammed at odd angles into a school
bus that had been turned onto its side Tuesday morning.“The scenario for the exercise on Durham Road near
Holton-Whitehall Road began after a domestic terrorist group
exploded a bomb in the front of the bus. The student victims
wore makeup that simulated blood, burns and other injuries. Each
wore a tag with a made-up name, age, type of injury and other
information.“Many of the volunteers were from theater class.
‘We all carried
on and got into character as best we could,’ said Kristin Smith,
17, a Reeths-Puffer senior. They screamed and banged on the inside of the bus, waiting to be
rescued. Some wouldn’t get out alive. Others were assigned to
die on the way to the hospital….“Organizers tried to make the exercise as realistic as possible,
complete with distraught parents arriving at the scene.”[2]Do you wonder why
Homeland Security
officials would sponsor an emergency preparedness drill that painted homeschooling families as
bomb-planting terrorists? We may never know
the full answer, but recent history of “prevention”
tactics and hostility toward traditional values exposes some
frightening facts many Americans prefer to ignore.The script for this disaster drill
was written by Daniel Stout, chief deputy for emergency services
with the Muskegon County Sheriff’s Department. After choosing to
label peaceable homeschooling families (rather than Islamic radicals) as the terrorist killers, Stout was
told that the event would be
offensive — but he chose to ignore the warning.In a report titled “Homeschoolers Portrayed as “Terrorists,”
Michigan’s Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)
adds the
following details:“On Monday, September 20, the
Muskegon Chronicle reported on a Department of Homeland Security
sponsored terrorism drill involving the Muskegon Area
Intermediate School District and the Muskegon County Emergency
Services. A mock attack would occur on a public school bus. The
simulated attack would come from a fictitious radical group
called ‘Wackos Against Schools and Education’ who believe
everyone should be homeschooled.“We immediately called the Muskegon Chronicle and explained how
this is offensive to millions of people who have chosen to
exercise their right to homeschool. Homeschoolers have never
committed violent acts against public schools or any terrorist
acts. Comparing us to the most dangerous people in the world is
a terrible insult and a travesty.”[3]Michael H. Bozym, Superintendent,
Muskegon Area Intermediate School District responded with this apology:“The Muskegon Area Intermediate
School District (MAISD) shared the disappointment of others when
we learned the September 21, 2004, emergency preparedness drill
referenced home-schoolers as the fictitious group responsible
for a mock disaster. We apologize…. A sample scenario was required in
order to receive the necessary funding to stage the event. The
Muskegon Area Intermediate School District and our local schools
did not construct the scenario, but participated with other
county agencies, hospitals, and emergency responders in
conducting the drill.“This exercise was meant to sharpen the skills and response time
of our emergency services personnel, but was unfortunately
clouded by the choice of this fictional group…. We sincerely
regret offending home school educators.”[3]Daniel Stout added his apology for the bias expressed in his script:
“In the world today, Homeland security is a very important
issue. The training of our nation to respond to the many threats
we face is of utmost importance. As part of a full scale
homeland security exercise on September 21, 2004 in Muskegon, I
wrote about a fictional group and fictional scenario for the
exercise. This fictional group and scenario made reference to
fictional people who are against schools. This fictional group
and scenario was not meant to offend any home school students.
It has nothing to do with any home school population….”[3]It has a lot to do with the homeschool population! It would
have been politically incorrect to link fictional terrorists to Muslim radicals,
but homeschooling families
have become a permissible target for all kinds of hostile media assaults. Like Christian pastors and fathers, they
face endless mockery and ridicule in movies, slanted
news reports, and public school curricula. They simply don’t fit the
new vision of the 21st century community.In light of our Supreme Court’s new tendency to seek legal
models in European law, the following examples show an ominous
trend:
Judges try to snatch
homeschoolers – Families escape homeland to keep from losing children
to state:
“Germans who choose to homeschool their children are coming under
increasing pressure from the state with some families escaping the
European Union nation to keep from having their children taken from
them…. A few weeks ago, HSLDA reports, a German homeschool family
escaped to Central America under threat of a judge who wanted to
take custody of the couple’s school-aged child.
…“Another
German homeschool family lost a recent court case when the judge
ruled that the parents had no rights to have input into the manner
and method of education in government schools. In this case, hard-core
pornography reportedly was being used to teach the children in their
German-language course. The judge also ruled that
fundamentalist Christians who do
not want their children to attend the government schools are not
protected by the nation’s constitution.”
[See
Ban truth – Reap Tyranny]
.
“This view, which likens homeschooling to the criminal act of child
abuse, was to become the pillar upon which Iowas homeschool crisis was
founded. A corollary view holds that homeschooling parents are potential
‘closet child abusers,’ and that the State must conduct routine
surveillance of this atypical, ‘abnormal’ family. Many social reformers
held the cynical notion that it was implausible that parents would
desire to stay home and educate children out of genuine affection,
devotion, and sincere conviction. The nasty inference was made that
there must be some sinister ulterior motive for wanting to keep the
children at home.”
Sitcom Plans to Lampoon
Home Schooling
(2003): “A new cable TV sitcom pokes fun at home
schoolers, pushing the myth that children who get their education at
home lack sufficient ‘socialization’ skills. The WB network
will be airing a 30-minute comedy called The O’Keefes.…”
[This show ended in June 2003]
Children flee homeschool cop:
“‘The homeschooled boys have been on edge,’ says their father Roger, since
a truant officer came to the family’s front door Oct. 3 and
warned, ‘I could have your children taken away.'”
Why the
hostility toward homeschooling?
While homeschooling parents are less likely to fight back,
there are other reasons why change agents in education and government
agencies would want to discourage home education. Homeschooling
families are unlikely to applaud today’s
march toward a government controlled system of “lifelong learning”
in collective thinking and pluralistic values. They are more likely to trust
the Bible and the U.S. Constitution than to trust the growing body
of UN treaties. They prefer factual history to
earth-centered myths and biased social studies curricula. And they avoid participation in the
Hegelian dialectic process that immunizes adults as well as
children against God’s unchanging truths.
In other words, their “separateness” doesn’t fit the global plan for
“continual change” and worldwide
solidarity. Remember Al
Gore’s sobering warning at a 1991 Communitarian conference in
Washington DC: “Seeing ourselves as
separate is the central problem in our political thinking.”[5]
Gore’s statement was quoted in the book, Spiritual Politics,
co-authored by Corinne McLaughlin, a follower of the Dhjwal Khul,
the spirit guide channeled by occultist Alice Bailey. Lest you
think McLaughlin too “far out” to be relevant, know
that she was the first Task Force Coordinator for President Clinton’s
Council for Sustainable Development. She also taught her
dialectic mediation strategies at the Department of Education,
Pentagon, and the EPA.[6]
“There really is only one sin — separateness,” she
states in her book. “War is more likely to spring from rampant
nationalism, ethnocentrism, and intolerant religious fundamentalism — all
extreme and separative attitudes.”[6]
Her solution? The same as Clinton’s: “What is needed
as a cure for separateness is a deep sense of community –– that
we’re all in this together.”
Professor John Goodlad, an
influential “change agent” in the global as well as national arena,
would agree. He warned his fellow educators that “most
youth still hold the same values as their parents…. If we do not
alter this pattern, if we don’t resocialize… our society may
decay.”
“Paradigm shifts are complicated,”
added Chester Finn, who helped Lamar Alexander market America 2000 to
the public. “But shift we will.”
It has happened before
After the bombing of the Oklahoma
Federal Building in 1996, government and media leaders
found an opportunity to blend a varied mix of
“malcontents” into the singular group labeled the Radical Right. Day after day, the media’s accusing pens
pointed to suspected foes of American togetherness — those whose
“enraged rhetoric” had created a national “climate of hate and
paranoia.” They ranged from “rabid” radio hosts and armed
“extremists” to Pat Robertson and concerned parents.
“Their
coalition,” said Time, “included well known-elements of far-right
thought: tax protesters, Christian
homeschoolers, conspiracy
theorists… and self-reliant types who resent a Federal Government
that seems to favor grizzly bears and wolves over humans…”
[9]
All were implicated, for all had questioned the government’s growing
control over local schools and personal lives.
“There is a dedicated, very well
organized, very well financed movement in America that is very
anti-public schools, very anti-government….” said Lew
Finch, the superintendent of schools in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “The
ultimate example of that sentiment is the bombing of the federal
building in Oklahoma City.”[10]
Finch’s main target seemed to be
Christian parents, those who supposedly want “all schools” to “be
controlled by the church — their church.” Like many progressive
educators, he felt hampered by parents who resisted two key parts of
the new education system mandated through President Clinton’s
education program, Goals 2000: (1) the
psychological strategies for changing their children’s beliefs and
values and (2) their government’s plan to expand the educational
bureaucracy through national standards and tests that emphasize
attitudes, not academics.
Across the country, educators
battling “the agenda of the Radical Right” express similar paranoia
toward concerned parents. In state after state, leaders organize
conferences to identify opposition groups, analyze their tactics,
and plan counter-action.
Many follow the
suggestions from Ronald Havelock’s book,
The Change Agent’s Guide to Innovation in Education. “[T]ry to
identify resisters before they become vocal and committed,” he
wrote. “Resisters, like innovators, should be judged for relative
sophistication and influence.”[11]
A report titled “Primer on the
Extremist Attacks on Public Education,” teaches educators to do just
that. Prepared by the California Teachers’ Association, it also
lists specific strategies for defeating “Extreme Right Groups” so
that “the majority’s moderate, more
inclusive values
may be promoted
and protected….”[12]
Homeland Security targets potential
domestic terrorists
To understand the massive Homeland Security system, you may want
to read “Homeland
Security and the transformation of America
.”
Notice its emphasis on prevention. As in the new push for “mental health” (i.e. pluralistic values
and collective thinking), terms and goals are redefined.
“Prevention” as used in security efforts shifts the
public emphasis from catching actual terrorists to identifying
potential
terrorists. And who might they be? Who could one day become terrorists?
The White House’s National Strategy explains the part
played by the FBI-led
Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) in Homeland Security:
“We will build and continually update a
fully integrated, fully accessible terrorist watch list.”[13]
One of
JTTF’s 56 FBI field
offices — located in Phoenix, Arizona — printed a three-fold flier several
years ago. The front panel states, “If
you encounter any of the following, call the Joint Terrorism Task
Force.” An inside panel lists suspects which justifiably include “Hate Groups” such as
“Skinheads, Nazis, Neo-Nazis (usually recognized by tattoos), KKK, White
Nationalists….” But it also listed some surprising suspects:
Right-Wing
Extremists
–‘defenders’ of US Constitution against federal
government and the UN (Super Patriots)
– groups of individuals engaged in para-military training
Common
Law Movement Proponents
– No driver’s license
– Refuse to identity themselves
– Make numerous references to US Constitution
– Claim driving is a right, not a privilege
– Attempt to “police the police”
Single
Issue Terrorists
– Lone individuals“[14]
If you wonder why “lone
individuals” would be listed, read
“The UN
Plan for Your Mental Health.” Remember, “separateness” does not fit
today’s vision of a united world characterized by
solidarity
and universal participation in Unesco’s “lifelong learning” and
dialectic process.
The call for prevention opens the door to unthinkable methods. In
“
Legalizing Mind Control,” you saw that President Bush’s Freedom Commission on Mental Health
would involve continual assessments and monitoring of “human resources” for
signs of broad and ambiguous signs of unwanted personality profiles.
Homeschooled children who might be considered loners,
independent thinkers, unwilling to compromise or who prefer to
work alone rather than in groups would be suspect.
This vision of
solidarity inspired socialist leaders decades ago. “It is urged upon the citizen
that it is wrong for him to oppose economic, social, and political change,”
wrote Dr. Lewis A. Alesen in his 1956 book,
Mental Robots. “He is
admonished, urged, threatened, and cajoled by all manner of techniques both
overt and covert to adopt a ‘positive’ attitude and to work for… the adoption of these proposed harbingers… of the perfect and classless society.”
The
framework for control is in place. So is the process for managing, molding and
monitoring healthy communities and healthy
people around the world.
Strategies that produce change
It’s
easier to change minds through an emotional fictional scenario than to
engage the public in a factual
debate. It’s more effective to discredit non-conforming citizens by
linking them to violent anarchists through suggestions or role-playing drills than to give
logical answers to
legitimate questions. History has shown that nothing crushes earnest
but “separative” groups faster than well-planned disinformation and false
accusations.
Role-playing simulations and fictional scenarios feed lasting
suggestions to individual minds as well as to the public
consciousness. These impressions take root and mold public values
and planned resentments. That’s why educational change agents use shocking stories to evoke the strong feelings
needed to implant new values into the minds of our children. Whether
imagined or real, events and stories that stir strong emotions build
convincing mental models. [See
“Brave
New Schools: A New Way of Thinking“]
This
involuntary
and unconscious
process is part of a century-old plan for change. [See
Chronology]. Professor Raymond Houghton
described the vision in a book titled, “To Nurture Humaneness,”
published
in 1970 by the ASCD, the curriculum arm of the National Education Association. He
wrote, “…absolute behavior control is imminent…. The critical point of
behavior control, in effect, is sneaking up on mankind without his self-conscious
realization that a crisis is at hand. Man will… never self-consciously know that it
has happened.”[16]
Storytelling
and role-playing in community settings are vital to this process,
for they create persuasive group illusions (and delusions) through
imagined experiences that stir strong feelings. As Harvard Professor Chris Dede, a global leader the development of education
technology programs, writes, “Sensory immersion helps learners grasp reality
through illusion.”[17]
(See
“The Power
of Suggestion“
and
“Brainwashing & How to
Resist It“)
Biblical response
We shouldn’t be surprised. The
Bible tells us that “the whole world is under the control of the
evil one,” and he has always despised the
Biblical God (in contrast to the more “positive” 21st
century god designed to please the public). That’s why Jesus
warned us that hostility and persecution are normal to the true Christian life. “If they
persecuted Me,” He told His disciples, “they will also persecute you… because
they do not know the One who sent Me.” (John 15:20-21)
Our challenge is to follow God’s narrow way in the midst
of the world’s pressure to conform to its broad way toward “continual
change” and global oneness. Christian
homeschooling parents have made a wise but costly choice to
guard and guide the training of their children. Their path will
be increasingly difficult as they face new regulations, rising
opposition and growing threats to their freedom. But our God —
the almightly King of heaven and earth — assures us that He
will indeed guard and guide those who trust and follow Him.
“…in all these things we are more than conquerors
through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither
death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers,
nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor
depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to
separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord.” Romans 8:37-39
For more
insights into this battle,
read these reports and
articles:
On this website:
Homeschooling Under Fire,
Three Myths of
Homeschooling,
and
Homeschooling Alert
Outside links:
Homeschoolers new political
force,
and
=”font-style:italic”>
Endnotes:
Michelle Maulkin, “Anti-homeschooling bigots strike again,”
townhall.com, September 22, 2004 at
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20040922.shtml
Lisa Medendorp,
Mock terror exercise helps county practice emergency operations plan“,
September 22, 2004The Muskegon Chronicle, September 22, 2004
at
http://www.mlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-5/109586432686410.xml?muchronicle?NEM
3.
Homeschoolers Portrayed as “Terrorists,”
the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)
in Michigan
4. See
The UN
Plan for Your Mental Health,
Clinton’s War
on Hate Bans Christian Values,
An International Information
System,
Brainwashing
in America,
Trading U.S.
Rights for UN Rules,
What Happened to
Parents’ Rights?
5. Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson,
Spiritual Politics
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1994),147.
6. See “Local Agenda 21”
at our web site. Corinne McLaughlin listed her experiences while
conducting a workshop attended by Berit Kjos during a 50th anniversary
celebration for the United Nations titled “Celebrating the
Spirit” at the University of California at Berkeley, June
19-21, 1995.
7. John Goodlad, “Report of Task Force
C: Strategies for Change,” Schooling for the Future, a report to the
President’s Commission on Schools Finance, Issue #9, 1971.
8. Chester Finn, Jr., “The Biggest
Reform of All,” Phi Delta Kappan (April 1990); 592.
9.
Philip
Weiss, “Outcasts Digging in for the Apocalypse,” Time (May 1, 1995);
48.
10. Anne Carothers-Kay, “School
chief fighting the radical right,” Des Moines Register, May 4, 1995.
Ronald G. Havelock, The Change Agent’s Guide
to Innovation in Education (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational
Technology Publications, 1973);122.
12.
CTA
Human Rights Department and CTA Division of Governmental Relations, “Primer on
the Extremist Attacks on Public Education,” June 1994, page 13.
13.
“Domestic Counterterrosism,”
The Department of Homeland Security, page
26.
White House website page:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/homeland/book/sect3-2.pdf.
14.
The author has a copy of the
“Joint Terrorism Task Forces” flier.
15.
Lewis Albert Alesen,
Mental Robots (Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers,
1960); page 10-11.Mental Robots, 10-11
16. Raymond Houghton, To Nurture Humaneness, ASCD (curriculum arm of the NEA), 1970.
Professor Chris Dede,
The
Transformation of Distance Education to Distributed Learning. This
link at
http://www.nib.unicamp.br/recursos/distance_education/dede.htm
is no longer active.
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