Reading Comprehension and Education – or is it the other way around?

This is one of my pet peeves – lack of reading comprehension - it sure makes a mess of communication! Impossible – in most instances!

I comment on several forums, often linking to articles by different authors for further reading and edification. In fact, as I note on my website, it is by reading the writings of others that I have and continue to learn daily – literally!

Sure enough, more often than not, someone will reply to one of my comments totally missing the point. First, they won’t read what I linked, then they latch on to a word or phrase which might be familiar to them and off they go promulgating ‘profundities’ which have little or nothing to do with the topic. When I question their reading comprehension – yup, they get offended.

Conversation? Ended!

Now here is the really shocking factor – most of these folks are over 50! Can you imagine ‘DaYouts’ of today?

Today we posted - Worse Than Ever: Government Schools After 35 Years - By Lawrence M. Ludlow – and - Study: More Students Are Graduating College Because It’s Gotten Easier - By Joy Pullmann      

Is there a connection? I think it’s YUUGE! I recall having to pass English exams in high school where reading comprehension was a YUUGE part! What happened?

So I proceeded to word search ‘reading comprehension’ in the Limbraw Library - https://crushlimbraw.blogspot.com/search?q=reading+comprehension – the first 3 articles after this post are on point and helpful for any parent or tutor – don’t rely on your teacher!

Here is the section in the library on Education – only 637 articles – a word search for specifics might be better-:)

Keep mentoring!

Improve Your Reading Comprehension by Writing Three-Sentence Summaries - by Patrick Allan

There’s no point in reading something if you don’t take some of it with you. This simple exercise, when used with diligent note taking, can help you retain more of everything you read.

On his blog, James Clear talks about the importance of taking notes while you read, as well as making those notes organized and searchable. But Clear also recommends you practice a summarizing exercise every time you finish a book. It’s simple: as soon as you finish a book, try to sum up everything you’ve read in three sentences. The practice forces you to go back over your notes and pull what was really important about the book. Now, in the future, you don’t have to read the book again to regain any lost knowledge. You can simply review your notes and read your summary to unlock all of that blocked off knowledge. This can be used for anything you read too, not just books. So do a little writing to improve your reading.

"Study Less, Study Smart": The Best Ways to Retain More in Less Time

When you're learning new material, it can be overwhelming when you think about how much time…Read more

Reading Comprehension Strategies: How to Retain More of Everything You Read | James Clear

Patrick Allanpatrick.allan@lifehacker.com@mr_patrickallan

Staff Writer, Lifehacker.com

https://lifehacker.com/improve-your-reading-comprehension-by-writing-three-sen-1792802262

Is Your Teenager a Reader? If not, begin here “X” - By Linda Schrock Taylor

Schools have an obligation to teach every child to read by using the most efficient and effective method possible. There is only one way to teach children or adults to read a language that has an alphabet and that one way is methodical instruction in phonics.  Phonics is the Code in which English speech is written down using its alphabetical letters to represent the sounds of speech so that the writer, or another person, can then read back what was written.

This task of teaching a child to read is best begun once the child has attained a verbal and emotional age of six (6) years.  While waiting for that magical age to arrive, each child should have listened to live people…preferably parents, grandparents, and teachers…read aloud and discuss hundreds of age appropriate stories to provide the child with hundreds of opportunities to experience characters, events, settings, and plots.  Such mediated book experiences also provide chances for a child to develop precise speech and sound awareness, a broad vocabulary base, complex concept comprehension, and vital pre-reading skills such as recognition of the ABCs and the knowledge that each story has a beginning, middle, and end.

Schools have a responsibility to bring each child to literacy by the completion of Second (2^nd) Grade.  Let me clarify that.  Schools have an obligation to have all children, except those incapable of attaining a 6 year verbal and emotional level, literate by the completion of Second (2^nd) Grade.  I realize that this idea is shocking but, as Peter, Paul and Mary used to sing, “The times, they are a changin’.”  Yes, in the one room schoolhouses of yesteryear, children were literate by the end of First (1^st) Grade, but that was then and this is now.  Teachers today are no longer equipped to teach reading skills as they once were.

In fact, most teachers and most instructors training teachers in colleges and universities (98+%?), do not actually understand what is mentally involved in the reading process.  If they did, they would not continue to promote the same failing methods that are renamed, repackaged, and reused with each successive generation of children.  Children move through the school grades without learning to read because each year those children are faced with the same erroneous, disastrous methods until either the child gives up on reading, or the school gives up on the child. Typically, both situations occur.

I refer to Third Grade as “The Killer Year” because during that grade the children begin “reading to learn” and start to locate information in textbooks.  Those children who are still “learning to read” enter a zone of non-achievement from which few exit.  My mother, a skilled, insightful teacher who taught until she was 74 years old, always said, “The only children who learn to read well in today’s schools, learn in spite of the instruction, not because of it.”  If children have not learned to read by the completion of their Second Grade year, the prognosis is grim……….

(Full text at link below)

BEGIN HERE: Your first responsibility is to help your child to quickly become a competent reader.  Time is extremely important so unlike the schools and teachers that failed your child, you need to succeed and do it quickly.  Your child has already wasted enough time and needs not waste more.

If you have not already found good teaching materials that include methodical phonetic lessons plus  reading practice stories specifically designed for teenagers, then I suggest that you order a copy of my book, Read Better! For Adults and Teens.  You only need one copy because I designed the book for you to sit beside your child and serve as the coach.

Just open the book and begin.  Read the brief introductory information then begin the lessons.  Each lesson is brief, followed by short lists of syllables or words to practice aloud.  Do not be afraid because you are not an official teacher!  How well have those certified teachers done? Right!!  You will certainly do much better than they did and you will soon have your child reading after years of discouraging failure……..

Full text at: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/03/linda-schrock-taylor/young-person-reader/

Everything old is new again – or is it the other way around? - CL

In the process of reorganizing my personal print book library – as compared to DaLimbraw Library online – I discovered an old favorite – Cliffs Notes on the Old Testament (as well as the New). I had used it years ago, but I was now curious as to its contents, particularly in light of my learning process in the last 10+ years. So I began to read – and was hooked – I am now about half way through the OT. Why was I hooked?

 Almost immediately, one thing jumped out at me. Since Cliffs Notes combines not only a summary of the biblical content of the books themselves, it does so with a historical perspective as to the author’s life, civil rulers, religion, culture and economics involved – and of course, the politics of it all.

 If we approach the bible and God only from the perspective of ‘You and me, God’, it is easy for us to forget that the bible and God are real – the bible is real history and God rules the entire universe. In many ways, history (both secular and biblical) is empirical evidence of the reality of both – whether one believes it or not. The question is not belief – it is about what is reality – in other words, what are the facts!

 As I read the Cliffs Notes on the various writers like Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, etc., that one thing I mentioned earlier was the fact that all of these prophets had the same complaint – the rulers and their ruling class associates were oppressing the common folks – repeatedly in every era. At times, I thought I was reading the articles which I often post in DaLimbraw Library – NOW!

 Nothing has changed! And it is occurring as we speak today. That includes God’s warning that justice will prevail eventually and destruction will follow – and it did – history proves it!

 It is not a secret that history repeats itself – but how many folks know their history? So where does the problem lie?

 Yesterday I posted: Otiosus rants | Essays in Idleness - DAVID WARREN

For a new generation of reactionaries, old printed books can provide a way to preserve the culture and knowledge now being systematically “re-curated” (i.e. censored and physically destroyed) everywhere I look.

But of course I meant small private libraries, that will have to be hidden from public view, and guarded against electronic penetration; not the extravagant starchitectural wonders that pass for “highbrow” among people who never formed the habit of reading.

 Reading has become a lost art. While useful to show us how to fix a faucet - we do not learn to think critically by watching videos. And don't get me started about reading comprehension.....!!

 “This is one of the reasons we founded Castalia Library. It allows every subscriber to take on the role of those monks who saved so much human knowledge from the rise of the Dark. Given their censorious behavior, do you really believe Google Books and Amazon and other converged institutions aren't going to systematically eradicate those books that they find "problematic" for one reason or another?”

http://voxday.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-storehouse-of-knowledge.html 

 How many people have read this - Virus That Isn’t There, Genetic Sequencing, and the Magic Trick - By Jon Rappoport

Judging by empirical evidence from our grocery shopping alone, most people are getting their ‘news’ from DaEveningNews. As Mark Twain said in his day: “If you do not read newspapers, you are uninformed. If you read them, you are misinformed!”

 And speaking of magic tricks - Of Two Minds - Everything is Staged

All the staging is a means to an end, and everyone in America is nothing more than a means to an end: close the sale so the few can continue exploiting the many.

 How and why is all this possible? “Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.” – Aldous Huxley

“I wish it were not so, but most human beings seem incapable of critical thought regarding how history follows a cyclical path due to human nature retaining its flaws, weaknesses, vulnerabilities and fortes throughout history. We believe we have advanced because our inventions, discoveries, and technology, but the desire for wealth, power and control over others still consumes a sociopathic portion of mankind who tend to rise to the top through any means necessary.”

Read it all: FOURTH TURNING ELECTION YEAR CRISIS – The Burning Platform - Jim Quinn (Text only)

 So now what? - Fourth Generation War Comes to a Theater Near You | Chronicles - By William Lind - As the late Jeffrey Hart wrote, the modern age began when Western men discarded metaphysics and said, in effect, “We are no longer interested in questions of ultimate meaning; from now on, we care only about the physical world.” From that time onward, a focus on the practical defined modernity. Out of it came ships that could cross oceans and navigation to guide them; steam power, then electricity, medicine that allowed Western men to live anywhere in the world; and, by the beginning of the 20th century, world domination by the Christian West.

We threw away that domination in three great Western civil wars: World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Now, the West is just one contending culture among many, the state to which the West gave birth is failing everywhere, and the questions of ultimate meaning that modernity discarded are returning to haunt its senescence.

Can the times be redeemed? Probably not, but as men of the West, we must try.

The Height of IGNORANCE? When It Becomes WILLFUL!

The fundamental purpose of my website and library is to fight ignorance – yours – and mine!

First things first - Ignorance is a lack of knowledge. That’s it!

Therefore - I am not ashamed to confess I am ignorant of what I do not know. – Cicero.

Try that the next time someone says something you know and can prove to be factually untrue! Then duck!:)

As I have been saying now for years, my reading has led to the conclusion that I have been ignorant of true American and World history - especially of the 20^th century and going back to America’s Civil War.

Why so much WILLFUL ignorance? It pays well! - Why should we expect them to understand any of this? They are paid above-market wages not to understand it.

Related comment by Crush: You know what really ticks me off? Some dude cites the one or two sources which are their entire basis for their beliefs in whatever the topic happens to be (and might be the only book or essay they ever read) - assuming that the reference is news to me. I've been reading for decades on various subjects dealing with GRPC - many archived in DaLimbraw Library - but they somehow determine that as misinformation or some conspiracy theory....without even reading it. And even if they do read, their reading comprehension level fails them because they can't get past their ingrained presumptuous presuppositions and/or binary thinking - their presumption being they have the only truthful source - what arrogant ignorance! But ignorance pays well when you're paid to stay ignorant!

Mailvox: Intellectual Stimulation - Vox Popoli – I have a number of friends who struggle to find some kind of intellectual fulfillment outside of their work. They were raised loving school, pursuing growing their mind, etc., and are stuck in this lie that the only way to continue that stimulation and that growth is by having a job. Do you have any advice for those (women especially) who have this deep drive to keep learning, but want to be moms and are worried that their intellectual side won’t be stimulated in the home?

Yes. Read a fucking book. Then, once you’ve finished it, read another one. If you’re intellectually fulfilled by sitting in an office or a classroom, you’re literally retarded.

It’s probably not an accident that no one ever asked me to write an advice column.

https://voxday.net/2022/10/28/mailvox-intellectual-stimulation/

Ten insane, completely irrational things millions of Americans believe as we enter the 2020s – by: Mike Adams - Will America survive past 2025 as it is structured now?

Ingrained Presuppositions and Binary Thinking + Ignorance = Human Condition Lacking Knowledge, Understanding - and even of God!

As has often been noted here, Man is a rationalizing animal. And what I have increasingly noted of late is that most people devote most of their intelligence to rationalizing what they already think to be true than they do to figuring out what they think is not true. This desire to rationalize rather than learn is, quite possibly, the intelligent individual's biggest intellectual weakness. – Vox Day

The vast majority of conservatives -- I would guess 80% -- are just like this woman. They are intellectually lazy. They have no respect for ideas. They have no intention of sacrificing either time or money to become better informed. They just want to feel superior. They spend their spare time ranting to other ill-informed people on the multibillionaire wokesters' social media platforms. In the great conflicts of life, they are bystanders. They do not have the strength of character to be winners. They think ranting is a substitute for thinking. They expect victory to be handed to them on a silver platter. – Gary North

Sorting Out…WILLFUL IGNORANCE, PROTECTIVE STUPIDITY, LYING and such…and what next?

The Danger of Perpetual Infancy - by Bob DeWaay

"Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil." (Hebrews 5:11-14)

Truth and Justice are Neither Determined or Achieved by Majority Rule! - Hosea 4:6 - my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. “Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children.

Is America Still Exceptional? - When will we learn? Who Rules Us? - Who Wants War?

It is TIME – for Christians to look in the MIRROR! - Contrary to the first century Christians who followed the instructions of Jesus when He ascended - Matthew 28:18-20 – we in our comforts and self-focused, self-righteous, presumptuous self-assurance LOST what our predecessors BUILT!

Covid: A Collision of Historical and Scientific Illiteracy - by Kevin Ryan (Willful ignorance has consequences. - CL) - How has the public’s willful ignorance been established so easily?  The Covid crimes were carefully practiced beforehand through a series of exercises conducted by governments and corporations since 9/11. And the operation builds upon elements utilized in all the previous government crimes against humanity.  Here are three primary components.

A Confession of a Reformed Neo-Con! - If it was 1982, I would be all in for the Ukies, since my hatred for anything Russian was practically inborn – but something happened since then – what was it? Both the world and I changed in those 40 years and you can read that if interested – http://www.crushlimbraw.com – but the sad fact is that most folks have not – and that includes people in my own circles – they absolutely refuse to accept anything that counters their presuppositions or binary thinking, and when you add in the years of accumulated ignorance, you end up with our human condition which is delusional ………

I learned in the last 20 plus years that almost all of my previous learning had been pure bullshit and propaganda – a hard thing to swallow…but true….and still learning.
Here’s logic – the systematic study and practice of discerning and speaking the truth! It is a process – never an end state.

What The Hell is Going On?

The Burning Platform - I’m 53 years old. The older I get the less sure I am about things I was sure about when I was 25 years old. I believed stocks for the long run was an unquestioned truth. I believed our economy was based on free market capitalism. I believed stock prices were based upon profits and cash flows. I believed a home was a place to live – not an investment. I believed the Catholic Church was run by good men doing good things. I believed journalists and the media were watchdogs working on behalf of the public. I believed our military was protecting our interests. I believed politicians legislated on behalf of the people. I believed the main purpose of bankers was to loan money to businesses and consumers in order to support economic growth. Boy, was I dumbass.

And one more thing…………………

“What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain

Summary and Review of The Hoax of the Twentieth Century by Arthur R. Butz, Part 1 of 2 – The Occidental Observer

 “The ‘gas chambers’ were wartime propaganda hoaxes.”

 The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry by Arthur R. Butz

The apogee of banned books.

*         *         *

Over the past dozen or so years, my reading choices have reflected a greater movement in my soul — I have crossed the Rubicon of “conventional conservatism” into the red-pilled land of the dissident right. To be sure, I am a relative nobody — just my own version of Winston Smith who has progressively discovered that the curated version of reality that I have been inculcated to accept has been largely fabricated. Like Winston Smith, I discovered that the past (i.e., “history”) is in a constant state of alteration. Like Winston Smith, I live in an era in which objective truth itself is being destroyed. For whatever reason, I am drawn by an almost-pathological contrarianism to read and contemplate that which I have been told to avoid. Now, many years later I hold views that make me, by conventional standards, a deplorable of the first rank — worse, perhaps, because I am educated and well read.

In reading a variety of banned books and authors, I had yet to touch a work that attacked the singularity from which all banishments flow: the Holocaust. One can hold a variety of “deplorable” views and still retain some semblance of a public life even if such intellectual persuasions are deemed unforgiveable by elite culture. However, a revisionist (or a “denier”) of the Holocaust is deemed so foul — so awful — so heretical that it destroys the possibility of any public life in the modern West. The day is coming when these modern witch hunts end, and it is coming sooner that people realize.

So, I took the time recently to dip my toe into — dare I say it — Holocaust revisionism. In my intellectual journey, I have touched upon aspects of Holocaust mythology by reading — quite intensely at times — the suffering of the German people during and after the war and the moral bankruptcy of the “good guys” of WWII (i.e., the Allies). The modern orthodoxy that surrounds WWII and the post-war settlement is crucial to understand the “Pottersville” that we call the modern West — dissenting from it is tantamount to heresy in past ages. In that sense, I became a political heretic by reading politically heretical works.

To be candid, I have had serious reservations for some time about the standard Holocaust narrative although there was never any reason for me to focus on it. It is not that I doubt Jews — and other non-Germans — suffered through expulsion and exploitative slave labor that took place during total war. If that is a genocide, I do not deny it. I don’t think anyone denies that. Notwithstanding that proviso, the idea that the Germans systematically exterminated European Jewry through gassings, etc., always struck me as farfetched. It always reeked of the same outlandish elements of WWI propaganda against the “Hun” bayoneting Belgian babies. For full disclosure, I am ancestrally “Hun” or German. I know my people. I do not think they were (or are) capable of it — not only in the macabre sense but also in its gross stupidity. I have always viewed it — at least internally — as its own form of blood libel against my people.

Questioning the Holocaust in any fashion comes at a great personal cost. While I am undoubtedly contrarian, outsiders seldom understand the cost — the conscious cost — that comes from intellectual dissidence and political heresy of this type. True, there is something liberating in seeking the truth no matter the cost, but the unfurling of each layer of dissidence further isolates the dissident. Some people — especially the congenitally empathetic people of northwestern Europe — just want to get along. I fight an invisible battle within myself between my desire for truth (no matter the cost) and my predisposition to get along and understand the “other.” Be that as it may, the truth-seeking part of my being has gained the upper hand over my empathic amiability. Reading something like Arthur Butz’s takedown of the Holocaust narrative then followed a series of intellectual and moral steps. To take them all at once would be to careen down the entire flight of stairs. Taking them, however, one step and one book at a time led me to Butz.

So here I am — as if an inner compulsion towards understanding the truth drives me — reading and reviewing Arthur Butz’s work, which follows herein. Again, to demonstrate how powerful the persecution that follows from questioning the Holocaust narrative, reading — and certainly reviewing — this book is enough to get anyone in the United States fired. That alone speaks to the level of cultural and political totalitarianism that exists. It is, to say the very least, a dangerous book to take seriously. So be it.

What strikes me about an author like Butz is his fearlessness and imperviousness to outside pressure. Butz, a native of New York City, was born in 1933. He is an American electrical engineer and a long-time faculty member at Northwestern University, which is, at least for the uninitiated, one of the finest universities in the United States. He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and he completed his PhD at the University of Minnesota. The only reason he remains a faculty member at Northwestern University is that he was tenured in 1974 — he is as ostracized at Northwestern as a tenured professor can be because of his views and research on the Holocaust. The tapestry of the academy will permit — and even celebrate — a variety of anti-social views such as acclaiming White genocide, championing Stalinism, blaspheming Christ, cheering violence, or defending the worst sexual depravity. All these outlandish views find academics who will defend their substance or at least see them as being cloaked in the First Amendment view that lauds their “courage.”

But Butz has no academic champions, and that lacuna should tell us something about the moment of time in which we live. Think about it — numerous professors openly espouse the desirability of White genocide — genocide of me and my children, and they are openly celebrated by the academy. The double standard is real: see it applied to those who question the Holocaust narrative based upon assessments of the evidence without any ostensible guile and they are instantly turned into “untouchables.” Whatever moment of history this is, it cannot last much longer. Butz accordingly has always been an army of one. Setting aside his lack of qualifications as an historian, Butz is a very, very smart individual (an MIT graduate and engineer after all) who has demonstrated an almost otherworldly obtuseness to outside pressure.

He is also an unusual suspect to have taken such a stance. While, at least to my knowledge, Butz has not provided a detailed public account of his personal motivations or a precise “origin story” for his interest in the Holocaust. However, based on his own statements in contemporary interviews around the time of his book’s publication, he described becoming interested through reading various books on the subject and studying the records of the Nuremberg Trials. He began his research in the summer of 1972, leading to the completion of his manuscript (which became The Hoax of the Twentieth Century) by the following spring. No sources indicate a specific triggering event, personal experience, or earlier ideological bent—such as prior involvement in “far-right” circles. Indeed, this is a man who is an elite academic and was educated at — and educating at — some of the most elite American institutions. That he would effectively throw away his standing as an elite is curious, to say the very least. In a sense, he is that one strange bird that followed an intellectual curiosity with an otherworldly tenacity and absolute moral belief in the truth. He is the classic pattern of low conformity (lack of intimidation by groupthink); high openness (vision of possibilities others miss); high cognitive abilities (comprehension of how systems work); and a strong internal compass (willing to bear the social opprobrium). Regardless of whether he is right or not, men like Butz fascinate me — they fearlessly challenge orthodoxies and systems. If such a man and type confront a thoroughly corrupt system, heroes are born........

https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2026/02/19/summary-and-review-of-the-hoax-of-the-twentieth-century-by-arthur-r-butz/ 

Vox Popoli: The surrender of the USA's foreign elite

Here is your assignment for today from Crush:

1-Read this VP summary and link to the full text article and read it ALL - this is not the usual pabulum sent out by typical 'Conservative ' sites blaming DaLeft, DaLeft - they are clueless as to WTF is actually going on - in fact, most of them are payrolled by DaCulprits exposed in this series of articles. Controlled opposition - which Trump found out - BIG TIME! 

Reading comprehension required - BIG TIME!

The next step is reading history - will be a separate post.

Bible - there is nothing new under the sun - the cycles of deception repeat and repeat because DaPopulace prefers lies to truth - over and over and over - until TSHTF - again and again.

This is a really important article if you want to better understand the grand strategic situation. Read the whole thing, and understand the way in which it is connected to the original plan of the Learned Elders of Wye to make the Great Leap Eastward that was publicly rejected by the Chinese in 2015. 

There is historical precedent for the sellout of Americans by the not-Americans of the globalist corpocracy who have been ruling them for the last 20+ years, as Lee Smith points out how an Athenian elite sold out the people of Athens after its defeat by Sparta:

In Chapter 5 of The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli describes three options for how a conquering power might best treat those it has defeated in war. The first is to ruin them; the second is to rule directly; the third is to create “therein a state of the few which might keep it friendly to you.”

The example Machiavelli gives of the last is the friendly government Sparta established in Athens upon defeating it after 27 years of war in 404 BCE. For the upper caste of an Athenian elite already contemptuous of democracy, the city’s defeat in the Peloponnesian War confirmed that Sparta’s system was preferable. It was a high-spirited military aristocracy ruling over a permanent servant class, the helots, who were periodically slaughtered to condition them to accept their subhuman status. Athenian democracy by contrast gave too much power to the low-born. The pro-Sparta oligarchy used their patrons’ victory to undo the rights of citizens, and settle scores with their domestic rivals, exiling and executing them and confiscating their wealth.

The Athenian government disloyal to Athens’ laws and contemptuous of its traditions was known as the Thirty Tyrants, and understanding its role and function helps explain what is happening in America today.

For my last column I spoke with The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman about an article he wrote more than a decade ago, during the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency. His important piece documents the exact moment when the American elite decided that democracy wasn’t working for them. Blaming the Republican Party for preventing them from running roughshod over the American public, they migrated to the Democratic Party in the hopes of strengthening the relationships that were making them rich.

A trade consultant told Friedman: “The need to compete in a globalized world has forced the meritocracy, the multinational corporate manager, the Eastern financier and the technology entrepreneur to reconsider what the Republican Party has to offer. In principle, they have left the party, leaving behind not a pragmatic coalition but a group of ideological naysayers.”

In the more than 10 years since Friedman’s column was published, the disenchanted elite that the Times columnist identified has further impoverished American workers while enriching themselves. The one-word motto they came to live by was globalism—that is, the freedom to structure commercial relationships and social enterprises without reference to the well-being of the particular society in which they happened to make their livings and raise their children.

Undergirding the globalist enterprise was China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. For decades, American policymakers and the corporate class said they saw China as a rival, but the elite that Friedman described saw enlightened Chinese autocracy as a friend and even as a model—which was not surprising, given that the Chinese Communist Party became their source of power, wealth, and prestige. Why did they trade with an authoritarian regime and send millions of American manufacturing jobs off to China thereby impoverish working Americans? Because it made them rich. They salved their consciences by telling themselves they had no choice but to deal with China: It was big, productive, and efficient and its rise was inevitable. And besides, the American workers hurt by the deal deserved to be punished—who could defend a class of reactionary and racist ideological naysayers standing in the way of what was best for progress?

This is a really important article if you want to better understand the grand strategic situation. Read the whole thing, and understand the way in which it is connected to the original plan of the Learned Elders of Wye to make the Great Leap Eastward that was publicly rejected by the Chinese in 2015. 

http://voxday.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-surrender-of-usas-foreign-elite.html

“Some thoughts on Thomas Jefferson Education for homeschooling”

(The following commentary was provided by my daughter-in-law in response to a question to me from someone on the internet. As she emphasizes, she hasn't personally taught the TJEd program, but is familiar with some of the specific methods and results that she has seen as an observer - the lack of developing reading skills seems particularly evident.

In any case, I trust this piece will be helpful for anyone interested. You may email me through my website home. - CL)

I don't know much about it, and there aren't any people that I know of that have used this approach, so my opinions are more from generalized knowledge of it rather than the practical application of the method.  As always, I would say that homeschooling in general, with at least a modest amount of attention by the parent or parents will result in a decent education, so this methodology will have as much success as the time and effort put into any other home school program.

Having said that, here are my thoughts:

PROS:

• The program uses a semi-classical approach to teaching.  There is no doubt that this approach has some amazing benefits.  Mainly, I feel that it teaches a child to think as opposed to just spouting back information.  Though it doesn't force reading at an early age, it does expect that the classics will be read to the child, which is meant to increase love for books and increase vocabulary and comprehension skills.
• The program's mentoring approach is ideal...it is the apprenticeship of old, only ideally with as many professionals as possible.  The purpose is not just to sit in a classroom listening to a "professional," but to go out in the field and work with one to attain knowledge and skills.  Perfect!
• The early years (until age 8 approximately) are a time to instill biblical principles, while also encouraging individualism.  To me, this means - let them play games (ideally educational games, but that is not forced) and "creative" play.  One can never find objection to instilling biblical principles!
• The approach tends to have a happy, non-confrontational home, because the child is not forced to learn.

CONS:

• The expectation is that the child will WANT to start reading beginning around age 8, and often say that boys will WANT to do that later.  I believe that this is too late.  I believe that those early educational years are formative regarding learning habits and developing the foundations for future learning.  Though obedience has in theory been attained by that time, it doesn't mean desire for learning has.  If my children were given the opportunity to go fishing every day until they were 8, they would still be doing it now!  It is a bit like the one of the families here who said the same thing about boys, and their children are the only ones that can't read the hunter safety test that they needed to take when they turned 10.  Not only is their reading still behind, but that puts them behind in other areas of learning, because they don't have the ability to read for math, science, history, etc.    This is the case with one family I know, but that doesn't mean this approach is not successful with other families.  Additionally, I do not believe that boys learn at a later age, as I am sure my children and their cousins can attest to that fact.  I think that discipline is harder to achieve in boys, but that is why I tell my children that I pray that they will be wise, disciplined, God-fearing, productive members of society.  It is a quality they must learn and, in my opinion, is best instilled at a young age.
• Mentoring sounds wonderful, but is sometimes impractical to achieve in today's society.  During Jefferson's time, this approach would have been easier and in certain societies today it is attainable, but rare.  I can see this approach working in Mormon communities or some religious communities like Seventh Day Adventists, etc., because there is a community that would be more apt to agree with the approach.  It is a bit like my son working at the maintenance shop.  Eventually, there was more concern about possible lawsuits or injuries, rather than the carrying on of a trade to our youth, and he was told he couldn't return.  Part of that problem is probably centralized around trade unions as well, but I'm only guessing at that--it would be harder to control your workers when you don't know who they are, and it would also be harder to control the trade when those outside the union would already know the skills of the trade.
• There isn't a real studying/learning approach until the child reaches puberty, when there is the expectation that the child will desire to learn 10-12 hours a day.  I have never had any of my children wanting to learn 10-12 hours a day, but then again I have not used this approach :)!  And, the things they may want to learn about are not areas of study that I want them to carry on for the rest of their lives (i.e., air soft gun repair, metal detecting, ipod games, etc.).  I hope that I am giving my children an education that will help them feel like they have had an advantage over public school students, rather than a disadvantage having been home schooled.  Their approach would mean that someone like my middle son would just be beginning to gain certain learning habits, instead of his having just completed his college-level Pre-calculus test on Thursday.  
• There is something to be said about the approach claiming that the student DESIRES to learn, but I am not convinced of that personally.  I feel that it is a bit like the First Law of Thermodynamics--a child who is at play desires to remain at play; a child who is learning will remain learning.  I pulled back this year on Calculus with my two older boys because I felt I was expecting too much as they were taking their CLEP tests, but I have had both of them ask me on numerous occasions to start back up with them.  I've had the oldest ask for me to continue helping him with Advanced Chemistry as well as his other sciences when I thought he might have too much on his plate right now.  They both started early, but they both want to learn.  Part of that desire, I think, is because they see success in what they already know, rather than feeling like their catching up to what others their age have learned.

Education is very important to me--not for the sake of knowledge, but for the sake of being a good Christian example in all areas of society.  As I say all the time to the teens here and to my children, you can't expect to have Christian leaders, unless you plan on becoming the Christian leaders yourself.  We need to infiltrate our society again, and we can't do that without being educated on so many different levels.  

Like unschooling, this approach can definitely be successful, but it takes the right child, the right parent, and the right community.  Like any home schooling endeavor, there are going to be parents/children that will not succeed, but the majority, whether using this approach or not, will be better off than the public school system--even if it only means that they have retained so many values that are lost or stolen from our youth that are indoctrinated in the public school system today.

Crush Notes and Connecting Dots LIST – (July-Dec/2019- Latest first)

This Crush Notes and Connecting Dots LIST – (Jul-Dec/2019) is part of a continuing compilation as explained in the Introduction posted earlier. If this is your first exposure to it, I strongly recommend reading the introductory material to fully understand the purpose of the LIST.

To catch them all as they accumulate – just put Crush Notes and Connecting Dots LIST in the search window and voila!

Dec/19

Why the War on Christmas? Connecting some dots!

Joyeux Noel! Let's all celebrate the Birth of the PRINCE of PEACE! - CL

Stop Blaming DaLeft – Look Deeper – It’s DaConservative Judases!

Judeo-Christian (Judeo-Christianity) is an Oxymoron! Judaism = Talmudism

When you add Ignorance + Stupidity = DaPerfect Storm! Welcome to DaDisUnited States of Insanity!

Remember Pearl Harbor! What's the truth? And the connection to 9/11?

Nov/19

 

China, USA, Prosperity, Morality and the Learned Elders of Wye – connecting more dots!

 

Oct/19

 

WeDaPeople vs. DaSwamp – who wins? You tell me!

The Dark Ages – NOW?

Who Rules Us? Does Anyone Care? Because no one knows – but we sure feel the effects! Another day to connect some dots!!!

Now I Can See DaEvilFED Monkey!

 

Sep/19

 

WAR: the consequences - from history and the impending future!

Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Black Swans and ………………DRONES?

It is easier to fool people than convince them they have been fooled! – Mark Twain

Remembering 9-11 – and what do we really know about it?

White Extinction is just diversity in action!

Reality is a Bitch! (And a few other words I found on an internet word search.)

Dealing With DaEstablishment Mafia – it is ALWAYS with us!

Who Wants War?

 

Aug/19

 

I didn’t know that! – Ask: Why?

Truths or Myths of American History

Fake Peace, Fake Healers, Fake Neighbors and now - Fake Jesus?

It is Time to Address the Reality of DEPLATFORMING – NOW!

The Jews – a Study!

Memo to Boomers and Other Oldsters

Reading Comprehension and Education – or is it the other way around?

White Supremacy? Is it time to face reality or continue to believe in unicorns and leprechauns?

The Un-Holy Trinity of Old Scratch (Satan)

Agonizing about shootings and morality!

Who controls your mind?

 

Jul/19

 

Is it Time for America to Break Apart? I thought you would never ask!

Fake News? Is there anything real anymore? Well, there is REALITY!

Ignorance – the bane of mankind and the means by which our rulers keep us under their control! While they shed our blood and steal our treasure!

Nationalism, Controlled Opposition, Immigration and - Vox Day is on a roll!

War with Iran? And what exactly is going on?

Conspiracy? Yes, and I have a tin foil hat to prove it!:)

Empirical Evidence, Your Lying Eyes and Your Concrete Mind of Previous Learning

Insights, History and, of course, More Lies!

Are White People Too Stupid To Survive?

America First? Not exactly!

What happened to the church in America? Here is the straight skinny!

Conversations on Controlled Opposition, False Flags, Oligarchs and even President Lincoln.

Reality is……………NOT wishful thinking!