Good questions, Mr. President.

Our posterity

One answer is that those American heroes certainly did not sacrifice their all to secure the Blessings of Liberty for self-interested public school employees to recruit, re-educate, politicize and socially transform our Posterity — American school children — into “Global Citizens” that campaign in the name of environmental “Sustainability.” 

People familiar with modern public education should be well aware by now that one of the ‘Re-Thinking’ pursuits in K-12 school districts these days is the values inculcation of belief systems that sustain “global citizenship.”

This political mission is commonly advocated while suppressing and/or demonizing varying, skeptical viewpoints — to which students are lawfully and ethically entitled under national and statewide academic freedom codes and regulations. 

Global citizenship is a postmodernist incarnation of Cosmopolitanism and “world citizenship,” one of a number of controversial political causes for which William Carr’s National Education Association advocated in the 1950s – back when the NEA began promoting the notion that the United Nations was the only hope of mankind.

Mr. Carr once wrote: “Teach those attitudes which will result, ultimately in the creation of a world citizenship and world government.”

Sustainability a.k.a., “sustainable development” crystallized in the United Nation’s Brundtland Report. It states, in part:

‘Sustainable development’ is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”; “An additional person in an industrial country consumes far more and places far greater pressure on natural resources than an additional person in the Third World” and “in the final analysis, sustainable development must rest on political will.

DE-GROWTHERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!

Wither General Motors and the incandescent light bulb…

Of course, acknowledgement of natural resource conservation and humanity’s place in ecological systems is an important aspect of elementary education.

But, the administration of dis-informational, faith-based political values systems (in the name of ‘science’) — to the exclusion of scientific method’s required skepticism and educational ethics’ practice of varying viewpoints — is, at the very least, unprofessional and deserving of vigilant critical scrutiny.

Statist canon like “social justice,” “global citizenship,” environmental “sustainability” and “multicultural education” are now pervasive in American schools, but are not sustaining captive young minds.

Parents, not educators, have the right to decide values, articles of faith and creeds for their children. Of course, children are free to make up their own minds whether to accept them over time. But it is not the job of public servant educators to undermine or contradict parents. That would be hostile.

Students do not attend public school so that teachers can make them hate American culture, society and their own species; that the human race is some kind of dangerous animal that must be culled by Planned Parenthood, or world government.                       

It’s bad enough when what they teach is false. They also lay extreme guilt trips on children that make them question whether they are killing our species and planet.

Such mind-numbing is a hostile act intended to brown/blackout common sense, faith, familial bonds, logic and reason from ‘green’ minds.

Wither ‘question authority’ and ‘dissent is patriotic’?

Small wonder charter and home-schooling are now such successful growth industries nationwide (against which – surprise! – the NEA et al. politically oppose funding).

Teach your children well…

How to impact positive change?

The same as one would were a public school or teacher discovered proselytizing religious scripture on the taxpayers’ dime.

Teach yourself well, as well.

Investigate and de-code these politically (not educationally) charged buzzwords and creeds, and specifically how they are being unprofessionally, unethically, even unlawfully propagated in your community’s public education system.

Access and read your local school district’s policies and state education codes and regulations concerning controversial issues, educational ethics, political neutrality and academic freedom.

Lodge formal complaints where appropriate. Follow-up in writing with your superintendent and school board when your district’s mission plan and/or teachers enact similar bullying as previously reported here, here, and here.

Unless of course you feel that America’s students – our Posterity – should not be burdened with varying viewpoints in public school, and that ‘this is one that’s no longer a debate.’

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” – Gen. George S. Patton

Lexicon:

Global Citizenship

Sustainability

World Citizenship

Social Justice

Multicultural Education

Academic Freedom

Pass it on…

UPDATE: My thanks to reader/writer Ashley Thorne for calling my attention to these two articles on ”Sustainatopia”:

http://www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?doc_id=697 
http://www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?doc_id=787

No environmentalist would ever allow their child to be treated in a hospital fully powered by “renewables”. They would not take the risk that the wind might stop whilst their baby was on the operating table. They would insist that the hospital and the life support systems had a fossil fuel powered back-up.

And so it is with “sustainable development”. It just isn’t sustainable. At least it does not sustain a lifestyle that those who promote it would consider acceptable for themselves. But of course that is the key. Renewable energy and sustainable development are for “other people”.

Even though environmentalists come from societies and very often families that became rich because of their use of non-renewable energy and unsustainable development they will not allow these opportunities to be extended to the poor in the developing world.

Environmentalists come from wealthy societies and families who cut down forests and burned coal and oil to make their families and societies healthy and prosperous. But, nowadays, for the poor in Africa and Asia and even middle America their path out of poverty must be “sustainable.” No fossil fuels or factories for them. But what this really means is sustainable poverty. It is a system that condemns people to a lifetime of drudgery and subsistence farming because modernity and industrialisation is “unsustainable.”

Which brings me to Bono, the lead singer of rock band U2 and more lately a campaigner for sustainable development in Africa, Asia and south America. In 2005 Bono and his wife Ali Hewson set up Edun a clothing range that was going to prove there is a different way to end poverty. It was going to be a non-corporate and of course “sustainable”.

At he time MSNBC said it would be “clothing with a conscience”. Vogue magazine said Edun was going to “flip capitalism on its head”.

But now it seems that Bono has now discovered that big companies with their big carbon footprints are useful if you want to keep paying the wages and produce the goods and sell them. Last week the rock star announced he has sold out to LVMH, the worlds largest luxury goods company. Announcing the deal Bono all but admitted that his touchy feely version of capitalism and development just didn’t work. Selling out to LVMH was a great deal, said Bono, and would “bring greater and longer-term stability to our manufacturers and the communities they support”.

In other words my Clooneyesc view of business is plain wrong and I now have to admit that I can’t pay the workers salaries without a proper business running the company. They, with their international marketing skills and economies of scale will make the business truly sustainable – that is – they will ensure that the workers have work and a salary every week and for years to come.

It is an admission that capitalism works and is the only way to ensure a better future for some of the world’s poorest people. And now Bono’s clothes with a conscience will be marketed and sold by a company that also sells Louis Vuitton, Donna Karan and Givenchy. LVMH’s also make and sell the delightfully unsustainable Moët & Chandon, Dom Pérignon and Veuve Clicquot. It also makes and sells parfum Christian Dior and Givenchy and luxury jewellery and watches such as TAG Heurer, Christian Dior and De Beers Diamond Jewellers.

Neither side felt it necessary to say how much Bono got for selling half the company to LVMH. Edun has, in the past, made much of the company’s transparency. However it seems that the transparency only extends to poking our noses into what the workers earn. Bono and his wife are exempt from such questions. But good luck to them. It is really not important to know how much money they have.

But it is important for them to stop keeping people in poverty in the name of sustainability. We used our resources – we burned coal and oil and chopped down our forests. We drove our cars and flew our planes. We have used capitalism to conquer disease and poverty and as a consequence our children are the best-educated and healthiest in history.

But it seems that now some of these children want to stop the poorest on the planet from having what we have. Bono loves sustainable development but only for other people. U2’s latest album was recorded in separate sessions in France, the UK, Morocco, the US and Dublin. The band is now going on a worldwide tour to promote it.

This is not “sustainable” but it is necessary to keep people in work and to keep Bono’s bank balance healthy. And this is a good thing. U2 will provide employment for hundreds if not thousands through selling the album and going on tour. But it is being done the old fashioned way – through unsustainable but wealth creating capitalism.

If it is good enough for Bono and his band of Irish multi-millionaires then it should be good enough for the poorest on the planet.

Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney are the directors and producers of “Not Evil Just Wrong,” a documentary which looks at the true cost of Global Warming hysteria. noteviljustwrong.com