{"id":24,"date":"2013-04-16T21:47:45","date_gmt":"2013-04-16T21:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.williamrussell.net\/?p=24"},"modified":"2013-04-16T21:47:45","modified_gmt":"2013-04-16T21:47:45","slug":"undermining-hope-candy-cell-phones-and-potato-bugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.williamrussell.net\/?p=24","title":{"rendered":"Undermining Hope (Candy, Cell Phones, and Potato Bugs)"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

Originally Posted 11\/14\/2012
\n<\/i><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nMy
\nwife, Kasia, told me the story from her family\u2019s history this morning. I
\nalready knew that her grandmother, after surviving the devastating
\nhardships of World War II in Eastern Poland with two small children,
\nbeing forcibly repatriated to a small village near Glogow, Poland
\n(ethnically cleansed in today\u2019s lexicon), and surviving to the see the
\nreturn of her husband from Stalin\u2019s Gulags (she had thought he was
\nexecuted along with her two brothers by the NKVD\/KGB ),and the loss of
\nher oldest daughter to the flu and malnutrition, resumed her career as a
\nschool teacher. <\/font><\/p>\n


\n<\/font><\/p>\n

One
\nof the hallmarks of the educational system in Soviet dominated,
\npost-war Poland was the attempt to undermine any hope the Polish people
\nmight place in non-socialist ideologies or people. They did so by
\nattacking the premises of faith in God, family, and any potential
\npartners in freedom. <\/font><\/p>\n


\n<\/font><\/p>\n

Kasia\u2019s
\ngrandmother passed on to her family how the NKVD\/ KGB sought to
\neliminate any faith in God by teaching children in a food scarce
\nenvironment that only Uncle Stalin could fulfill their needs.  <\/font>The
\n\u201cteachers\u201d responsible for political indoctrination knew the children\u2019s
\nparents could not afford nor find sweets on the devastated economy.
\nThey invited the children to pray and ask God for candy. When no candy
\nmaterialized, the children were invited to ask Uncle Stalin for candy by
\nwriting letters to him. Those letters were answered with candy provided
\nthrough the \u201cteachers.\u201d  <\/font>The message for the children was clear: neither God nor their families could give them candy, but the government would. <\/font><\/p>\n


\n<\/font><\/p>\n

Kasia\u2019s
\nreason for sharing the story with me was the Obama Administration\u2019s
\nfree phone giveaway just before the election struck her as so similar to
\nthe Soviet use of children\u2019s candy to get people to put their faith in
\nthe government; rather than relying on faith in God, our personal
\nefforts, and the strength of our families to improve our lives. It is no
\ncoincidence that so much of the Democratic \u201cget in line and stay in
\nline\u201d voting effort was oriented on social media and text messages sent
\nto cell phones. <\/font><\/p>\n


\n<\/font><\/p>\n

One
\ncan only wonder how many voter registration cards found their ways into
\nthe hands of first time voters in close proximity to where those same
\nhands received their new cell phones. One must also wonder how many of
\nthose same phone numbers ended up on the election-day text and tweet
\nlists of the Democratic Party. <\/font><\/p>\n


\n<\/font><\/p>\n

Another
\nmethod of undermining hope, which Kasia witnessed in her own childhood,
\nwas to attack any potential partners in freedom by blaming them for
\nfailures in the great socialist economy.  <\/font>In the 1970\u2019s,
\nPoland experienced an infestation of the Colorado Potato Beetle which
\nseverely damaged the potato harvests. The propaganda films from that era
\nblame the United States as having caused the epidemic of tuber eating
\ninsects. Of course, those films totally ignore the releases of the
\ninsects by the Nazis in neighboring Germany during the war and the
\ninability of the government directed economies to meet the demands of
\nthe market for pesticides.  <\/font> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n


\n<\/font><\/p>\n

Just
\nas the Communist government in Poland blamed the United States for the
\npotato beetle infestation, so the Democratic campaign commercials blamed
\nRomney and Bain Capital for lost jobs and the death of union family
\nmembers. This effort to undermine the hope opposing voters might have
\nhad in Mitt Romney to restore the economy also worked. Although Romney
\nand Bain saved many companies and created hundreds of thousands of jobs,
\nmillions of unemployed anti-Obama voters believed enough of the
\nanti-Romney potato beetle propaganda, and stayed home. <\/font><\/p>\n


\n<\/font><\/p>\n

A
\nthird and most disturbing part of this strategy of undermining hope has
\nbeen the Democratic message that the demographics in America have
\nchanged so much that that it is impossible for the Republicans to ever
\ngain a majority again; \u201cthey are just too old and too white\u201d and must
\nchange their policy positions to get younger minority voters. At the
\nstreet-tweet level, this message is taking on racist overtones and
\ntelling minority voters that this is the way to make racist old white
\npeople pay for Obama\u2019s programs.  <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n


\n<\/font><\/p>\n

The Democratic message of \u201cHope\u201d truly undermines the hope of the American Dream. <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally Posted 11\/14\/2012 My wife, Kasia, told me the story from her family’s history this morning. 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