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Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall this week, gives me a moment of reflection. I was there just days after the mostly young people from the west and the east climbed the wall and began chipping it away with hammers, pick axes and later bulldozers. They partied on the wall where only days before people who tried to cross the wall would have been shot.
I have a piece of that wall on my desk. It reminds me of the joy and sense of freedom felt in the streets of Berlin 20 years ago.
That piece of cement also reminds me that while the old Soviet Union and it's old style communism, self destructed (thank you, President Reagan) in a slow burn for all the world to see, a new, mutated form of the same old beliefs is hard at work.
President Obama said on his 100th day in office,"The work of remaking America is well under way."
Indeed it is.
The ideology that drove the old Soviet Union is remaking western civilization and undermining every principle that framed the founding of the greatest country in the history of the world.
America.
Melanie Phillips has called it "cultural Marxism," which she says is, "based on the understanding that what holds a society together are the pillars of it's culture: the structures and institutions of education, family, law, media and religion. Transform the principles that these embody and you can thus destroy the society they have shaped."
This work is well underway, in our country and our state. And the results are becoming more and more apparent.
Change has come, as they say. Can we reverse the trend?
My piece of cement reminds me this is a cultural war---not a single battle.
Antonio Gramsci, an Italian thinker and journalist, introduced "cultural Marxism" as a way to re-order a culture. His teaching was primarily embraced by radicals in the 60's then became even more accepted in the 70's after his journals were published in English. Those who hated western society, what it stands for and the Judeo-Christian principles upon which it is built, absorbed his teachings and are now acting on them.
They are now in power.
Gramsci understood that the working class would never rise up and take control of 'production, distribution and exchange' as the old communists had hoped and predicted. He concluded that the path to revolution was not economic, but through reordering social norms and beliefs.
He believed a society could be overthrown if it's core principles were replaced by those of the group seeking to change that society.
He advocated a "long march through the institutions" to undermine the core values of that society---turning them upside down.
Change.
The traditional family is being redefined in this generation.
Marriage is being deconstructed and redefined in this generation.
Homosexual relations are being normalized and Washington State, along with a few others, have said these relationships are equal to those in natural marriage. Textbooks are reaffirming this to our children.
Public education has been greatly compromised and one of it's most important functions has been neutralized---that of transmitting a culture to the next generation. That function has been replaced with the idea that what children already know is superior to what they can be taught.
Phillips says, "The outcome of this 'child centered' approach has been wide spread illiteracy and ignorance and an eroded capacity for independent thought."
Our laws have been undermined by the "rights" agenda. Political correctness has turned morality on it's head. Nothing is absolutely right or absolutely wrong. There is no capital "T" Truth---only little personal, often changing, "truths".
Groups who practice deviant behavior are elevated and protected as victims.
"Cultural Marxism" advances the belief that the world is divided into two groups. The powerful, who are responsible for all the world's ills, and the oppressed who are the victims and responsible for nothing and worthy to be rescued by those advancing this belief.
And thus a wall is built between the core principles and beliefs that built a great nation and those espoused by a minority who hate the principles and the resulting culture.
Phillips says, "Feminism, anti-racism and gay rights, thus turned men, white people and Christians into the decency who were forced to jump through hoops to prove their virtue."
This belief has led to a place where a nation with culture, language and borders is the cause of all societal ills. It has also led a nation to elect a President who travels to foreign countries to apologize for America.
This philosophy uses the institutions of society itself to re-educate and re-order a democratic society to replicate that of a totalitarian one reminiscent of the old Berlin Wall" Soviet Union.
The fall of the Berlin Wall reminds me of a moment of freedom, but it also reminds us that the battle for the mind and heart and soul of western civilization--- America in particular, still rages.
A battle won or lost is not the final act. The final act has been foretold by the prophets.
There is a clarion call, an instruction to "occupy until He returns," to each generation. A call to stand for those principles and values that build great civilizations because they build great individuals. These are the fundamental cornerstones to every successful society.
I believe, there is such a call to this generation and sometimes it may include standing in the face of political correctness, experiencing criticism, scorn and sometimes public mockery.
I personally will, to the best of my ability, heed the call. I know many of you will, as well.
Thank you for your support.
__________________
Gary Randall
President
Faith & Freedom
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