It had to happen
Buy this book to “make sure your kids know you made the right choice in 2008.”
The author is the same wonderful guy who brought you “Why Mommy is a Democrat.” I think it may be time for a little stroll down memory lane. Here’s a reprint of a post I wrote about that children’s classic in February of 2006:
Gerard Van der Leun has called our attention to a children’s book that has to be seen to be believed. Actually, scratch that; this book cannot be believed, even after being seen.
Take a look. Take a long look. Then come back and agree with me that Why Mommy Is a Democrat simply must be parody; it is so perfectly simpleminded that it could be nothing else. Spawn of the Onion, perhaps, or Mad magazine–something, anything but an actual serious effort at writing a children’s book.
After giving the post at American Digest some serious in-depth study, and Googling around (including a visit to the book’s website), I can only conclude that Why Mommy Is a Democrat is on the up and up after all, as serious as serious can be.
In the book, the words “Democrat” and “good person” seem to be used synonymously and interchangeably, and the illustrations–oh! the illustrations!–featuring what I can only conclude are meant to be squirrels (although they look more like antennaed aliens to me)–are quite stupendously hideous in a sentimental and strangely retro Dick-and-Jane-y way.
I can’t quite fathom having the concept of writing such a book in the first place, the need to explain the ordinary everyday political affiliation of a parent to a very young child. I just don’t think it’s an issue that’s uppermost in a child’s mind, or even something about which a child would care at all. But I suppose that, even though this is a children’s book, it’s really wasn’t written with the child in mind.
And it turns out the book is not alone. Research is my thing, and careful research has turned up a host of similar items, children’s books about Mommy and politics. So I now present them for your edification (by the way, all these books are quite real, although my interpretations of them might be just a tad suspect):
Sometimes My Mommy Gets Angry: this one’s easy; Mommy must be an evil Republican.
Mommy Hugs: here Mommy’s clearly a loving Democrat–although that elephant illustration on the cover must be in error; the characters should be donkeys.
Mommy CEO: 5 Golden Rules: obviously a Republican again, and a dirty capitalist to boot.
Mommy Diagnostics: The Naturally Healthy Family’s Guide to Herbs and Whole Foods for Health: a Democrat, what else? Lives in northern California, perhaps Marin county.
Mommy Knows Worst: Highlights from the Golden Age of Bad Parenting Advice: not only Republican all the way, but note the nefarious author: blogger James Lileks! Need I say more?
Mommy and Daddy Are Fighting: we obviously have a mixed marriage here: a Democrat has married a Republican (was this book by any chance written by the offspring of James Carville and Mary Matalin?)
Mommy is Missing: apolitical and unaffiliated, Mommy probably doesn’t even bother to vote; she’s a shirker
I Saw Mommy Kicking Santa Claus : The Ultimate Holiday Survival Guide: Mommy is a liberal/leftist secular Democrat who is gamely fighting all the trappings of Christmas
Mommy You’re My Hero: a military Mommy, more likely than not a Republican, although she certainly could be a Democrat instead
Mommy Poisoned Our House Guest: can there be any doubt? Mommy’s a Republican all the way.
The DIY Guide to Mommy Sanity: clearly, this is about our very own Republican Dr. Sanity
Mommy Under Cover: CIA Mommy.
Dear Mommy and Daddy When I Grow Up I Don’t Want To Be BROKE: written by the budding Republican child of Democrat parents, an ungrateful turncoat
Mommy And The Policeman Next Door: don’t ask, don’t tell; you don’t want to know
And, by the way, my mommy really was a Democrat. Still is, actually.
All kidding aside, children are nearly always indoctrinated by their parents in their initial political affiliation, and most of the time this affiliation lasts for life. In fact, one of the very first posts in my “A mind is a difficult thing to change” series talks about that at great length, here. But Why Mommy Is a Democrat is an unusually overt–not to say heavy-handed and preposterous–example of politicizing directed towards children.
Somehow, it reminds me ever so slightly of this:
“Elementary Class Consciousness, did you say? Let’s have it repeated a little louder by the trumpet.”
At the end of the room a loud speaker projected from the wall. The Director walked up to it and pressed a switch.
“”¦ all wear green,” said a soft but very distinct voice, beginning in the middle of a sentence, “and Delta Children wear khaki. Oh no, I don’t want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They’re too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I’m so glad I’m a Beta.”
There was a pause; then the voice began again.
“Alpha children wear grey They work much harder than we do, because they’re so frightfully clever. I’m really awfuly glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don’t want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They’re too stupid to be able ”¦”
The Director pushed back the switch. The voice was silent. Only its thin ghost continued to mutter from beneath the eighty pillows.
[ADDENDUM: I see from the comments section that it’s not obvious that my saying the book Why Mommy Is a Democrat must be a joke was itself a joke. Let me make it crystal clear that I know the book is only too serious.]
Take a look. Take a long look. Then come back and agree with me that Why Mommy Is a Democrat simply must be parody; it is so perfectly simpleminded that it could be nothing else
I am sorry to say that your wrong… and that making the assumption that this is a parody allows such to be used with children and not be disliked.
Its more clear in things like ANTZ… where the parents understand the soviet style things are supposed to be parody, but who explains that to the children?
“…Grown-up….Subversion slips by swiftly at 24 cels per second…” — Rating: A-
Entertainment Weekly – pp.84-5 – Stephen Whitty
But how many librarians are going to stock that in the adult section and not the childrens section where the kids can go and read without supervision?
How can a population avoid indoctrination and propaganda when its so polished we think it’s a parody when we see it, and others who don’t see it that way take it seriously?
Want to know how I know its not a parody? Because it has all the key communist points in it, which is why YOU think it’s a parody. You think people arent that stupid, and I think that generally, they are even more stupid (short sighted would be better).
Democrats make sure children can go to school just like mommy.
They are taking the credit (falsely) that it was the democrats supporting feminists that got women into school. but before the baby boom womens attendance was 46%… they took off to have families… (several schools have the time line and percentages up, one only has to know non revised history).
You get first start, then preschool, then grad school, junior high school, high school, all under the programming of the ones in control of the state. how are parents to teach culture and values against that monolithic thing?
Democrats also want cradle to grave indoctrination. So this is a way of normalizing women who act like men, children who are raised by the state, etc. Notice there is no father in the image… another left communist socialist goal —fathers are not needed.
Take B…
Democrats make sure we all share our toys, just like momey does.
Again… no father… mom is the sole caretaker. And notice gender neutral toys, as well as the concept that no one owns their toys… but like a collective they all share them. reminds me of the leggo town where they forbid the children to build unequally.
The Hilltop Children’s Center located in Seattle, Washington has recently come into the news due to the L’ego my Lego effort to ban the children’s play toy Legos from their school age care program. Apparently a project started by the children, ages 5-9 evolved into an elaborate “Lego Town” being constructed. Special legos that were rare or valued for their color or use began to take on value as more and more children became involved in the project and leggo parts became sparser. Children who had began the project took ownership and pride in their efforts and often expressed an amount of control over the expenditure of additional building blocks regulating in a child like way the expansion of “Lego Town”..
What did happen was the further indoctrination of children into a mindset that fits quite squarely into the definition of communism.
The two teachers around which this idiocy swirls are Ann Pelo and Kendra Pelojoaquin. Ann Pelo is an admittedly avowed classroom activist having co-written That’s Not Fair: A Teacher’s Guide to Activism with Young Children, with Fran Davidson another activist teacher. During Pelo’s “investigation” of the children’s behavior the children were guided through activities designed to inculcate the ideology of group ownership, equality and communal cooperation while at the same time subtly diminishing the concepts of individual personal property rights, stating that, “their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys… mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society — a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive.” I wonder what that says for their general opinion of the United States.
conservativearena.blogspot.com/2007/03/lego-my-lego-and-evil-blue-angels.html
Still think that its just a cute book… or is it a way for the children to be preloaded at home to be more receptive to the games at indoctrination centers (schools) who don’t really teach anymore…
And exhibit C..
Democrats make sure we are always safe… just like mommey does.
Tie the elephant symbolism… no fathers… mommy state will save you.. etc..
Those who are reasonable… will do nothing…
Those who are unreasonable, will keep producing these negative things
Like the feminist magazines printing the advertising that they say is harmful, yet demanding the industry stop it… why don’t they just choose not to show those ads?
Because that doestn get them control of something else, it only shows they have self control over their own domain.
Anyway… this is how you subvert things.
Sex education was designed by a man named lukacks precisely because it pits childrens desire for fun and lack of forthought against parental admonissions to grow up slowly.
Basically the schools buy the kids loyalty by being negative enablers of pleasure which the parents, like conservatives, wish to have more responsible behavior attached to it.
All kidding aside, children are nearly always indoctrinated by their parents in their initial political affiliation, and most of the time this affiliation lasts for life.
If this was true the communist revolutions could never happen… as communism is a new invention and no one was a communist before… if this was true, then the socialist revolution of the 60s woudnt have happened.
This is the msm wisdom that promotes tabula rasa… read about twin studies into political thinking.. the twins are the same more often than they are in line with parents.. (to an amazing degree that seems creepy to those that deny genetics to define us)
Most people who write about indoctrination, deny it, etc… don’t take any time to study it. to realize that there are whole think tanks where people all have average iqs over 150 and are paid to work out clever ways that they can control the 120s below them that control the 100s below them.
The soviet union has 100 years of all the best psychology experts and human experiments of the most heinous kind to know even more than the experts into how to reform people.
Artfldgr: You misunderstand me. I was being sarcarstic. Of course I’m well aware that it’s not a parody. Would that it were! Nor is the new book a parody. I think I might add something to the original post that says as much. That’ll teach me to try to be sarcastic.
I edited out your last comment because it was only a quote and it was just way too long! Provide a link instead, please.
forgot to mention… do some reading of havelock… he made something called a “change agents” guide…
this should open your eyes to what change is. an overview ppt for medicine is here.
chhs.gmu.edu/nsg/436/ChangeTheory.ppt#287,14,
Change Theories
basically, in short, its a sociopathic technique for dialoguing to a false consensus based on what the change agent wants to accomplish and outside of merit. (if they had the merit answer, they wouldnt have to use these psychological mind games).
if you know this stuff, you will find these terms come up more and more…
i wasnt going to post again… but i forgot to add havelocks thing… better to delete my last post showing how easy it is to play games with receptive minds, to this.
however, these NEUROLINGUISTIC things are well known… lucifer in the garden of eden used these same word games on eve, but if you dont know them how can you recognize them.
PUAs use them too… as do salesmen…
but the worst are the teachers and havelocks guide and new school stuff and teachers college games from columbia (the school with the most spies prosecuted by our state)…
here is a sample that i bet we all have been subjected to by management or parent teachers, and other things… but we never knew what it was (i took courss in this when i worked for fortune 10 and was being grommed for management, i took a tech path instead)
you first hold a meeting. the meeting is to get a free flow of ideas… brainstorming… etc..
the organizer then takes notes.. not as to teh quality of the ideas, but to put everyone in the 6 response categories. lovers of new change, early adopters, the reluctant… the laggards, etc.
[by the way, teachers are also doing this to students now (i have 3 family members who are teachers and just have to do their work or not work)]
the idea of the meeting was not to get ideas and get to the best solution, the idea was to identify the sociological psychological position of the members.
then, you complimente everyone. you say something like… this is all great stuff… we have a lot of ideas here… lets think about them and we will have another meeting later.
its in between the meeting that the games are done. for instance the teacher may call the parent and say thigns like – but your the only parent in the whole meeting that has that opinion (when the truth is that 90% do), or… the early adopters are tagged to talk to the laggards…
basically they are using group vs individual dynamics to put a person in a positio of having to stand up to what they believ in. most people cant. which is why police can get confessions by innocents. (they now use these games too).
the whole idea is to use shaming, being left out of the group, etc.
if they still dont change, then split the meeting… have a few and schedule them so that the key laggard is not there that day, and the consensus is skewed and they are then forced to accept it till they are outed.
merit has nothing to do with it.
this is success by other means than merit
this is winning by any means, the mandate of socialism… since this is how these states work…
you cant control outcoems unless you control entities, and you either control them by force, or you control them by mind games… or accept that they are free and youc ant control outcomes.
they are basically following lewins force field model.. and it three phases.
unfreeze… here is where cognitive dissonance, as in the story above is used. the children experience dissoanance which is uncomfortable, and so the teacher gives them the easy out.
which is the next step.. move them into a new equlibrium… the flag was cut up.. but it was made a moral goodness instead of bad.
the last is to freeze them at the new level… this gives them peace aagain… the leftists have gotten this kind of school programming for years..
it didnt set in the 50s… because all they had was this… it too lippett to formalize it more into something useful, like the description i gave above… and it took havelock in the 70s to evolve it more… (wihtout opposition).
here unfreezine is building a relatioship, diagnosing the problem, getting your resources in place (the first description of the meeting).
then moving.. you choose the solution.. talk to the parent.. .send a friends of other opinions to talk… leave them out of the choice part… etc.
then refreeze… stabilize it… make new laws and rules that prevent going back… remove those who didnt change so as to make a collective of the same mind, which will refuse to go back, etc.
in havelocks there is a example of using an oracle to break childern down… the teacher tells the students that they talked to an oracle. and the oracle says that tomorrow they will kill their best freind in the whole world.
the point is to create dissonacne… steven pinker refers to this kind of thing in his book the blank slate as moral illusions, like optical illusions… they pit our sense of morals against itself… and we can ge guided to abandon such for the opposite reason we accept socialism. its not self consistent.
this leaves the mind open to pour what you want in, to remove the dissoanance. much of our schooling using the princess and the pea thing, makes this effect much more sensitive than normal.
the whole point is to get your way by manipulating others like a sociopathic puppeteer.
by the way… sociopaths take to this liek water, and sicne they cant succeed as well with merit (takes work and their natures are to cheat), this fits perfectly to their emotios… (maybe its because the first politics to do this were made up by releasing criminals to create the force – see derzinsky).
when you read the slids above… note that its the science of changing minds, and the actual thing that its to chagne to doesnt matter..
it takes away the niggling problem of having to be on the right side.
my appologies for the long posts, and one more than intended.
i know a lot about this area… and it amazes me and makes one scared that the asverage psych person would think you nutty becasue they dont belive it.
Excuse me while I frow up.-
I think I might add something to the original post that says as much. That’ll teach me to try to be sarcastic.
Don’t change a thing neo. Your post is ridiculously entertaining.
Also from lileks:
grr. Let’s try this again.
Disney’s Toontown
Huxley was an interesting person. A few of good quotes from him
An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.
It was one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous.
Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.
dont change it, thanks for deleting the too long message…
and i stand corrected in regards to your knowlege of that situation with the books (and other things like nikelodeons crud). i am used to other people not knowing.
OK. So I’m a gumball. I thought it WAS a parody and purchased 6 of the things to send to my friends. I thought it was a send-up of the MSM and their differing treatments of conservatives / liberals and Democrats / Republicans.
The page which was the clincher for me was the one about safeguarding the environment. There was a guy with a push-broom (who looked like the janitor in the opening sequence of Mr. Peabody’s Improbable History cleaning up the roadway after the passage of a large beast. Guess. Just guess. What the beast was.
You get an A if you said elephant.
“Nolanimrod Says:
OK. So I’m a gumball. I thought it WAS a parody…”
You are probably treating them as rational, when in fact, with the narcissist bunch that makes up Obama and his followers, it’s far more likely that the more outrageous something from them seems, the more likely they are deadly serious about it.
Keep in mind that narcissists usually have no sense of humor; if you think something from them is a putting you on, you’d best think again.
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Artfldgr … dude … if you must inflict such vast rivers of prose on us, could you at least do a LITTLE proofing? If you’re not too busy “being grommed for management”?
Kirk, I’d rather see some editing for length.
My mouse is one of those with a center wheel for scrolling, and I think I’m wearing that wheel out. 🙂
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Are we working our way toward the best seller “Why daddy is a transexual progressive with a baby on the way”?
Communism is just a childish view what society is or should be. It operates starting from kindergarten concept of justice and equality: everybody gets equal share of everything, without any idea where from these goods come and who creates them. So it is natural for leftists to try to perpetuate this children mentality well into adulthood, and with concentrated effort, it is possible. What is impossible – it is to organize productive society, when psychic development of its members is arrested at this childish stage.
Excellent article – as always neo!
First point:
My own perception is that there is a mass effort to socialize the youngest members of society into a particular mindset. I noticed this during the campaign when I saw my first children’s Obama book.
Children don’t vote (unless you let ACORN near them), so why the book?
What you are exposed to, becomes the norm. Anything that is outside of that developed norm becomes alien – and hence uncomfortable.
They are basically raising an entire new generation of new deal type democrats who are comfortable from the cradle with these kinds of viewpoints, and any Libertarian or Conservative or Republican (not always the same, unfortunately) viewpoints will require deliberate re-education of the individual who takes the initiative to turn away from their early socialization and actually question the beliefs they were spoon fed from childhood.
Of course, by then it’s entirely too late to change what’s going to happen to us and our nation.
Second point:
Obama is going to be greatly constrained financially. Yeah, I know – when have financial constraints ever stopped a democrat congress and democrat president from spending money?
Only in this case things are so bad all over the world that even they have to bow to the laws of economics. Also, don’t count out the republicans being able to point out their deficit spending at every opportunity.
Since they are not going to be able to push through their spending bills as promised, they have to have some other means of placating their supporters.
The only tool left are social issues.
Perhaps that’s why last night I had to change the tv channel 3 times to keep my 5 year old and 10 year old from seeing all about the “man” who was pregnant!
I know you are quite aware that the book you mentioned “Why My Mommy is a Democrat” is a reaction to the line of books written by conservatives — such as “Help! Mom! There are Liberals Under my Bed!” by Katharine DeBrecht (and the various sequels). As in the books indoctrinating kids to be conservative came out first, followed by books indoctrinating kids to be liberal.
So what would the follow-up title be?
“Mama Voted For Obama!”
“The Sane Voted For McCain”
(Of course, “sane” also rhymes with Hussein, doesn’t it? So does “insane”.)
Let’s stop this before we get a children’s book intended to explain President Obama’s policies as Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces:
“Obama, in his Pajama, pursues Osama on his Momma’s Llama”
(and my hat’s off to whomever wants to draw an illustration of that…