Jim Bratten
March 14, one month after the Parkland, Florida shooting, children across the nation, guided and prompted by their teachers, protested in a “National Walk-Out” from their classrooms. The major sponsor was “Empower,” the youth wing of the radical “Women’s March.”
Former Socialist-Democrat candidate for president Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) showed up to play with the children. In New York State, Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo laid down on the pavement next to the youngsters, helping in their effort to simulate a “die-in.”
At the demonstration in Washington, DC school children turned their backs to the White House for 17 minutes. That was the plan; one minute of protest for every person killed in the Parkland, Florida high school shooting a month earlier, to the day. But the “demonstration” lasted two hours. That’s what happens when you allow students of high school age (or younger) to cut class, protesting things they don’t comprehend.
The National Walk-Out (against guns, Donald Trump and the NRA) was choreographed by Empower and also supported by Organizing for Action, the Democrat Party, Michael Bloomberg’s various anti-gun groups, MoveOn.org, George Soros, and others of radical bent. The propaganda campaign accompanying it by the leftist media was the PR arm of the effort.
It was an anti-gun agenda, pure and simple. In New York City, the young impressionable students protested outside Trump Tower, repeating their anti-Trump, anti-gun, anti-NRA diatribe ad nauseam.
The leftist chants were straight from 1968; same drumbeat, same rhythm, new lyrics.
Democrats are using these children as political pawns, to legitimize their perpetual gun-control agenda, showcasing the kids’ grief and loss for political advantage in the November mid-term elections. Everything is political for the Left; seventeen deaths and the innocence of our nation’s children are not off-limits. And the political naïveté of a multitude of parents makes it much worse, casting parents as accomplices to the leftist agenda to disarm a law-abiding American populace.
Some state Republican Party officials are fed-up, however. The Republican Party in Chicago is planning to sue the Chicago public school system for violating their stated code of conduct in helping to organize the National Walk-Out in that city. It seems that taxpayer dollars were involved to finance a political activity when classes were canceled for the day. At last there is some push-back to this flagrant abuse of children, and hopefully also the use of teachers on the public payroll to further an unconstitutional progressive agenda.
Children are being taught to protest and demonstrate against things their teachers tell them are bad or unjust, without proof.
They are used for public propaganda purposes, instead of receiving solid instruction on subjects they will need to comprehend fully for a successful, satisfying future.
Impressionable students are not taught that evil people bent on killing others don’t follow laws, gun laws in particular. Killers will go where defensive weapons are not found and “Gun Free Zone” signs are an invitation, providing fertile ground for evil.
According to the latest Pew Research Center poll, “U.S. students’ academic achievement still lags that of their peers in many other countries.” This study found that, “The most recent [Programme for International Student Assessment] results, from 2015, placed the U.S. an unimpressive 38th out of 71 countries in math and 24th in science.” American education is mediocre.
Our schools need more academic instruction and less community organizing. One look at the protest signs and you realize our esteemed educators should teach the “Joys of Civic Disobedience” less and the “Essentials of Civil Discourse” more.
Hoosier Patriots, Inc. is an educational and organizational non-profit for restoration, preservation and defense of the Constitution. We provide conservative commentary on public policy and government action across a variety of issues concerning the well-being of the republic. For more information go to www.vc-tpp.org or subscribe to the newsletter at hpnw.jimb@gmail.com.
