The two areas of American life that I’ve seen the most changes from the 1950s to the present are in education and the media.
We all started school in Kindergarten. There was no pre-school in the 50s, at least where I grew up in Brooklyn. Now, kids are expected to have a pre-school experience before starting Kindergarten. Considering the millions born in the 50s, I can’t imagine how much more awesome all of us baby boomers would’ve been had we gone to “pre-school.” I think we’ve achieved some very great things over the last 70 years even by starting school in Kindergarten.
Today, education, at all levels, has been hijacked by the Far Left Progressives. Teachers’ unions call the shots. Nothing has to do with the well-being of the students. I’ve read numerous reports on how much the government spends per child. One such report says states spend on average $12,903 per student. But that ranges dramatically. New York spends on average $20,744 per student, while Utah spends $6,751. Yet, teachers still have to buy their own school supplies. Why? I’m thinking it’s because the monies go to the top-heavy administrators in the school system and to pay pensions and not to the children.
Just look at what’s happening in the schools over the past year during the pandemic. Catholic schools have been open and carrying on while many public school districts remained closed. Why? Because of the teachers’ unions. Just look at the negotiations between the teachers’ union and Mayor Lori Lightfoot in Chicago — despite what the Mayor wanted, the union would not open the schools.
Liberal professors outnumber conservative professors. With such a liberal bias, how can diverse opinions be expressed and examined. Isn’t school supposed to expand thinking and reasoning? Not today. Students don’t want to hear anything other than their own orthodoxy and require “safe spaces” from ideas they don’t like. Students, brainwashed a certain way, demand conservative speakers not be allowed to speak on campuses. How insane is that?
One of my biggest pet peeves is the almost non-existence of vocational and trade schools but rather the push to have every son or daughter go to university, whether they belong there or not, and so often ending up with incredible debt and a worthless degree in urban or gender studies. I’m proud to be a product of vocational training and went on to being in the 1% of top wage-earning legal secretaries. Even with vocational training, I did what was necessary to get into and graduate law school and had a lucrative career as a lawyer.
Here’s a perfect example of how low we’ve sunk as a society: The UC system of California has eliminated SAT scores as part of their admissions qualifications because it supposedly gives “white students an advantage.” So what does that mean? The system lowers the standards for everyone instead of taking some of those taxpayer dollars and tutoring non-white students in order to keep the standard high for everyone. How does that help anyone?
As a nation, we’re now facing something called “critical race theory” which is being pushed down the throats of our young people. Growing up, I was taught to love this country, but, today, young children are taught to hate America by fostering the idea that white supremacy oppresses and exploits people of color and that we (white people) have all benefited from white privilege. Fortunately, there are states and districts fighting back this hateful and divisive policy, the latest being the states of Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Idaho and Oklahoma and, hopefully, other states such as Michigan, Tennessee, North and South Carolina will join in its rejection.
A valedictorian decides to go off script and advocates for abortion at her high school graduation; the San Francisco City idiots want to remove the names of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln from all its schools; sex education for second graders; removing holidays names in favor of “days off;” and professors, who are not politically correct, are fired for exercising their First Amendment rights. Can it get any crazier?
A friend recently sent me an article about a North Korean defector who attended Columbia University, who was interviewed by Fox News and said, “’I expected that I was paying this fortune, all this time and energy, to learn how to think. But they are forcing you to think the way they want you to think. I realized, wow, this is insane. I thought America was different but I saw so many similarities to what I saw in North Korea that I started worrying.’ Those similarities include anti-Western sentiment, collective guilt and suffocating political correctness.”
I can’t imagine how my blue-collar upbringing could be considered white privilege. My success in life wasn’t based on the color of my skin. I learned early on that hard work, education, acquiring a skill that would enable me to earn money and not having children out of wedlock was the way to move ahead. Those things don’t sound like “white privilege” to me. They sound like common sense. You want to get ahead, you have to get an education and be willing to work hard. Period.
What’s frightening to me is wondering how many parents actually know what’s going on in their children’s elementary, high school and universities. When selecting a school to which their child will attend, does political correctness even enter into the thought and selection process? It certainly would be for me. If I were to spend tens of thousands of dollars for my child’s education, you can be sure I would not have my child return home as an America-hating socialist.
Finally, the most obvious difference in American life over the last seventy years is the media, which clearly is the most corrupt institution of all. While thousands of words could be written by me about the mainstream media, I’ll try to be as succinct as possible. The dishonesty today in the media is just overwhelming.
We used to have newsmen like Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley and Edward R. Murrow. I’m guessing most news guys were liberal, even then, but you’d never know it from their reportage. They kept their opinions to themselves. Today, there’s no distinction between journalism and opinion. When there were 95% negative news reports regarding President Trump during his Administration, you know something was definitely wrong with the media. There was no fairness; there was no balance. How many on the Left actually acknowledged it was President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed which enabled the pharmaceutical companies to create a vaccination against the Wuhan virus? (What European socialist country created its own?)
Back in the 70s you had investigative reporters like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, digging and digging and digging, leaving no stone unturned in order to expose Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal. (I still would have to ask if those pitbulls would’ve gone after a Democrat with such tenacity. Somehow I doubt it.) Over the last couple of decades, there have been no investigative reporters in the mainstream media who were seeking to undercover the shenanigans of the Clintons, Hunter Biden or even the source of the Wuhan virus, to name just a few issues.
It shouldn’t come as any surprise that Progressive and left-wing politics run the media. It’s very well-orchestrated to fit a particular narrative because, on any given topic, the talking heads in the New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC and CNN use the exact same words – clearly parroting the narrative that’s been provided to them. Of this, I have no doubt. Stories are buried, others surface, others are exploited, and others are out and out false – but the mainstream media are all in sync.
Just look at the last four years spent by the media trying to convince us about Russian collusion with the Trump administration. Millions of dollars of our tax money spent on a phony story orchestrated by the Left and carried forward by the media. Four years of endless drivel by the talking heads at these so-called news outlets about a non-existent conspiracy.
There is absolutely no accountability and, unless you’re a news junkie as I am, and seek out the truth from a number of news sources, most people don’t pay attention and have absolutely no idea what’s happening in America.
