Dear friend of truth

Dear friend of truth,
My eleventh summer was spent in a small, Norman Rockwellesque town where my brother and I and five friends were able to ride our bikes anywhere, day or night.

Even though we never thought about danger, these were the days of the Cold War, and news reports about Senator McCarthy were daily events. We frequently heard that “there were communists under every bed.” (Some of us actually looked under our beds to ensure that we were safe.)

One day, our band of seven observed two very hippie-looking kids coming out of a shack near the river. We were impressionable and imaginative children, so just one look at these two scruffy college-age people made us believe that we knew just WHO they really were. Communists! Although they were part of the local summer artist school from Michigan State, we decided that the art school was actually a “front,” and as good citizens, we must do our duty.

Now, seven kids ages 9 to 13 on bikes are formidable defenders of freedom. Off we went! We assigned “surveillance patrols” to follow their every move. My “patrol” was mid-morning. After watching the young woman and young man spend time painting the local scenery, we followed them, from a distance of course, on our bikes as they headed to the one public phone in town. Trying to overhear their conversation without being seen was almost impossible, but we decided just riding past them several times would allow us to hear what information was being shared and with whom.

Imagine our chagrin to catch enough of the conversation (amid their scowls) to hear that someone on the other end of the line must be ill. Further surveillance of their movements convinced us that they really were just art students, not communists. Soon, our small band of patriots was off on another mission.

What was my takeaway?
I was gullible, uninformed, but emotionally engaged. I fell for media-enhanced, emotional propaganda tactics that used twisted truths to attack Senator Eugene McCarthy, not the actual spies. Even though I was safe in my small town, the world WAS (and is) a dangerous place, whether it be because of the communists
of the 20th century or the Islamists of the 21st. As I later learned from the 1930s onward, the communists were out to destroy America. After the Soviet Union fell, KGB files later validated the spies named by McCarthy.

Secondly, because small communities are transparent and everyone knows everyone, truth can ultimately prevail. Our small town enabled us to separate emotion from truth. It was easy for us to check out the facts from our elders and find that there truly WERE communists in the United States, but they were NOT under every bed. In our community, strangers were noticed and moms and dads knew where their kids were.

Down the road, what wisdom did I gain?
I learned that our gullible minds should not believe everything we hear from the media. Today, more than ever, it is important to ferret out the truth – not succumb to “post-truth.” (According to the Oxford Dictionary, post-truth is an adjective defined as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”) Sharia adherent Islamists ARE dangerous.

Second, in looking back, the Norman Rockwell America of family, faith and freedom has almost disappeared in America. This is in part due to diabolic efforts over the past decades to obliterate rural and suburban America, replace truth with “post-truth,” and control our thoughts and actions, with the goal being to erase our Christian faith and freedoms. For America to survive, we must recreate our communities centered on family, faith and freedom.

Addressing truth and the loss of community, we will suggest solutions and action plans in the Spring FRONT LINE through our feature article: Embrace America? OR Erase and Replace? How and Why We Must Choose Wisely. We will also provide you with questions to help you discern the positions of the candidates for school boards and municipalities on the April 4, 2017, ballot.

As always, we will discuss the proposed Missouri legislation that is before the General Assembly. In addition, we will present several feature articles from last month’s enlightening 28th Educational Policy Conference that addressed issues paramount to our nation.

PLEASE consider how you can encourage your friends and neighbors to be informed voters by ordering bulk quantities of FRONT LINE. Let us vigorously embrace the Norman Rockwell vision of America.

Donna Hearne