They’re lunatics, I guess, but they’re accurate lunatics

Aug. 20, 1997

"There's a sucker born every minute."

— Attributed to P.T. Barnum

I'm just about convinced we have become a society of mindless, robotic dolts.

For much of at least the last decade, we've all heard voices out there warning us about a number of subjects: Outcome-Based Education, nationalized health care, the "New World Order," and a socialized economy.

We've labeled the vast majority of them as crackpots, radical right-wingers, dangerous religious fanatics and reactionary would-be power-grabbers. The fact that some of them ARE pretty bizarre — the members of the militia or "Patriot" movement, for example — makes it a whole lot easier to disbelieve them.

It's a lot easier on the ear to listen to a calm, rational, peaceful voice of reason, especially when that voice reinforces our individual need to believe that we are an integral part of the greater whole, and those cries of warning are part of some lunatic fringe.

Yet here we sit and watch as everything the "lunatics" have been warning us was going to happen ... is happening.

Take the "New World Order," for example: the kookies have been saying for at least 40 years that a clandestine movement seeks to establish one world government, eliminate such unnecessaries as the Constitution of the United States, and replace them with a World Constitution.

Ludicrous idea, huh?

In 1996, the United Nations published a 420-page report entitled Our Global Neighborhood. That report outlined a plan for "global governance," calling for an international Conference on Global Governance in 1998 to draw up the necessary treaties and agreements for ratification by the year 2000.

Those with Internet access who'd like to see more on that subject might hang a search for work by a man named D.L. Cuddy, PhD.

Now, I've written a lot on the subject of domestic violence, and I remain a very ardent supporter of the need to educate the public about the subject. But I really have to wonder which direction we're headed in Texas.

The Texas Council on Family Violence is planning its 16th annual statewide conference, "Building a New World," Oct. 5-8 at the Adam's Mark Hotel in Houston. The featured speaker will be "professor" Angela Y. Davis.

Yes, that's the same Angela Davis who, during the 1960s, was a rabid advocate of the violent overthrow of our government and its replacement with a communist dictatorship. The TCFV press release announcing the conference mentions that she's "internationally renowned for her work to combat oppression."

Pardon me if I profess misgivings, or perhaps retch a bit.

Then there's the subject of Outcome-Based Education, that looming specter of stupidity which, we've been assured time and again, Texas will never, ever, under no circumstances, adopt.

Did you happen to read Sunday's Houston Chronicle story on the slew of "charter schools" being opened by the Houston school district?

To quote from a few of the glowing descriptions: "Crockett Elementary will emphasize real-life curriculum rather than textbooks." "Fondren Middle School ... has no bells ringing to change class times nor grades on report cards..." Grades would, after all, be too "stressful."

Duh!

If Texas is not implementing Outcome-Based Education — which has failed EVERYWHERE it has ever been implemented — why are we opening charter schools where the curriculum is very clearly OBE?

It should also be enlightening to know that such organizations as the Pew Charitable Trusts [a foundation] annually award millions of dollars — some $21 million-plus in 1996, for example — to help college "research" to "prove" that OBE will work. At the very least, that research will help educational publishers develop lots of new products to market.

Pew and others are also heavily funding "research" designed to "prove" that we need a socialist economic system, socialized health care, and a single world government.

I don't know, maybe the world they're envisioning WILL be a better deal than what we have now. Then again, maybe this attempt at Utopia — like all the others man has tried through the centuries — will flop.

It'll be interesting to see just exactly how accurate those lunatic nay-sayers will be.