When I was in my second year of college in 1968, I decided to attend a meeting of the Students for a Democratic Society. Like most students and many Americans, I was fed up with the Viet Nam war and I had heard that they had fresh, new ideas for America. I went in to the meeting to learn and possibly join the group. I came out shaken by what I heard. Although the organization only lasted for another year, their philosophy and goals have not only endured, but have successfully entrenched themselves into the American mainstream.
My guess is that there were about 100 students in the
auditorium that evening. I remember there were four speakers and a slide show.
The title of the meeting was “Transforming America from Within”. I took notes
but I’m pretty sure they went to the trash bin of my college career when I
graduated.
From the beginning, they made no excuses for being primarily
influenced by Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. They were against the Viet
Nam war, not because it was killing American
boys at an alarming rate, but because it was a war against Communism. To them
it was a futile war because they, the Socialist – Communists in the U.S.
had compiled a strategy to transform America
from a Democracy to a Socialist state and do it from within. We were encouraged to read
articles from Tom Hayden and Saul Alinski along with older Communist Party USA
books from the 40’s and 50’s. I never bothered back then. However, when Barack
Obama stated in his first campaign that he was going to “fundamentally transform”
America in his
presidency, I was certain that I had heard those words before. So, I did some
very overdue homework that the SDS assigned me 45 years ago. My general
conclusion is that they have done a marvelous job in the fundamental
transformation business ever since.
Below are just a few of their stated goals.. See if you
recognize any of them in America
today.
Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts
for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get
control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
Gain control of all student newspapers.
Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments,
editorial writing, and policy making positions.
Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion
pictures.
Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all
forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to
"eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute
shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them
"censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting
pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with
"social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for
intellectual maturity, which does not need a "religious crutch."
Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the
schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of
church and state."
Discredit the American Constitution by calling it
inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to
cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as
selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
Support any socialist movement to give centralized control
over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs,
mental health clinics, etc.
Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage
promiscuity and easy divorce.
Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative
influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of
children to suppressive influence of parents.
Create the impression that violence and insurrection are
legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest
groups should rise up and use “united force” to solve economic, political or
social problems.
When you think about it,
this kind of reads like Valerie Jarrett’s “To Do” list.
