Why is Cass Sunstein Comparing Communist China’s Education System to America’s?
Some people call him the most dangerous man in America. Some people never paid attention to him at all. (That would be me, by the way.) And then some people woke up; again, like me. I began to pay attention to the Sunstein view of the world when I noticed what his wife (Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.) said about America giving up a “pinch of sovereignty.”
Sunstein wrote an article for the uber progressive Bloomberg View outlining a scary proposition, indeed. The article outlines China’s education reform and how new research shows “that recent curricular reforms in China, explicitly designed to transform students’ political views, have mostly worked.”
Oh goody. You all are going to have to forgive my sarcasm with this article because I really cannot contain it.
Sunstein starts the piece out by saying, “Suppose that an authoritarian government decides to embark on a program of curricular reform, with the explicit goal of indoctrinating the nation’s high school students. Suppose that it wants to change the curriculum to teach students that their government is good and trustworthy, that their system is democratic and committed to the rule of law, and that free markets are a big problem.”
Yes, let’s suppose China is doing this. Scary, right? Even scarier that we aren’t even supposing here, we are DOING and it’s not just in China. China has provided the time and research into showing that it works. We, through the Common Core, are now just emulating them.
Did we not just see a possessive noun worksheet that children complete by correcting the “errors” in punctuation but all of the sentences talk about how great and wonderful the president of the United States is? Yes, I think they are learning the government is good.
Do we not have millions of adults running around talking about our wonderful “democracy?” Yes, students have learned that our system is a democracy. Even good people who I know are not progressive in any way will say we live in a democracy. As one fellow recently pointed out to me, “If you repeat the lie often enough, it becomes truth.”
And do we not have a huge Occupy crowd? Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Education. Occupy the Bathroom. Okay, the last one is not real. Yet all of these Occupy folks are about one thing: Free market is bad. So, again, yes, I believe we are teaching our kids and young folks in the progressive bastions of higher education that free markets are a big problem.
More from Sunstein’s ode to brainwashing kids:
“The crucial finding from the study is that the new curriculum greatly affected students’ thinking. They became more likely to count the Chinese political system as democratic. They displayed a higher level of trust in public officials. They were more skeptical of free markets, and more likely to reject the view that a market economy is preferable to any other economic system. They were more likely to want to extend political influence to groups outside of the Chinese Communist Party.”
The communist reformers had 6 goals in mind when they began this circus of errors. Two of the proposed brainwashes didn’t take. Those things being the environmental and racial issues. They learned that Chinese kids were not impressed with the environment claims and didn’t want to give up some of their money to help the environment. They also were not more disposed to minority groups.
I’m guessing this is why the Frankenscience that the United States has adopted through the Next Generation Science Standards is so important right now. Must brainwash these kids to feed that ever growing “green” movement. Green because we care about the environment? No, green because that’s the color of money that the “greenies” make off of this garbage.
I’m also going to suppose this is why we have the White Privilege crowd pounding the “white people are evil” drum and the uninformed, Kool-Aid drinking, “useful idiots” are lapping it up in record amounts.
Sunstein actually says that despite the two failures, it is striking and somewhat ominous that government planners were able to do this. Somewhat ominous? Only somewhat. It would only be really ominous if we were “indoctrinating” our children with correct history, science, government and economics, right? Surely that would be frightening for people of Cass’s ilk because those children would grow up to be the pitchfork-wielding adults that would chase him and his cronies out of the nation for treason.
The final paragraph in his love letter to China’s communist, child brainwashing education system is this:
“Is this conclusion limited to authoritarian nations? In a democratic country with a flourishing civil society, a high degree of pluralism, and ample room for disagreement and dissent — like the U.S. — it may well be harder to use the curriculum to change the political views of young people. But even in such societies, high schools probably have a significant ability to move students toward what they consider “a correct worldview, a correct view on life, and a correct value system.” That’s an opportunity, to be sure, but it is also a warning.”
Let’s dissect that, shall we?
Is this conclusion limited to authoritarian nations?
Perhaps. We are nothing if not approaching that state of government here and it seems to be working for the ed reformers just fine.
In a democratic country with a flourishing civil society, a high degree of pluralism, and ample room for disagreement and dissent — like the U.S. — it may well be harder to use the curriculum to change the political views of young people.
Maybe they started brainwashing back when Cass was in school. After all, he seems to think we live in a democracy and that would be wrong. As for the “ample room for disagreement and dissent” comment, I beg to differ. If you disagree with any little part of the progressive movement these days, your livelihood and character are likely destroyed. If you don’t believe me, ask the Benham brothers, Phil Robertson, or Brendan Eich. And those are just the more famous of these situations.
So, no, in short, I do not believe it is hard to change the political views of young people. Especially when you already have a good amount of years working on their parents who just bolster the attitude.
…high schools probably have a significant ability to move students toward what they consider “a correct worldview, a correct view on life, and a correct value system.
Excuse me? Who’s idea of “a correct worldview?” Certainly not a Christian’s view…that is not allowed in school. Who is in charge of guiding their children’s upbringing, values, and views on life? Schools? Aka, government? No, thank you. In fact, drop the “thank you.” Just NO. We know the progressive’s view on life. We reject it out of hand. And lastly, a correct value system. Again, WHO’S value system? A government machine’s value system? That thought is so scary it makes me want to find my barf bucket, stat.
The last little bit of the ending is just the cherry on top, for me.
That’s an opportunity, to be sure, but it is also a warning.
That’s an opportunity, to be sure. An opportunity to brainwash our children into believe what the government wants them to believe. An opportunity to cement the progressive mindset into our children who will then pass it on to their children and before you know it, America doesn’t exist anymore. This is the Common Core, folks. Welcome to Red China.
