by Aaron Warner
There is no better time to make the drive up I-89 to Burlington than when the leaves are changing and the weather is still warm enough to keep the windows down. The Green Mountain state transforms to the autumn creamcicle-with-cherries-on-top state as nature’s diverse colorscape parades through the foothills one more time before we return to Narnia.
A similar feeling came across me as I found my way to the United We Stand Media Fest tucked back in the film room at Main Street Landing. The event was intended to draw a diversity of political persuasions who agree our liberties are in jeopardy as we barrel toward another election pitting members of the duopoly at each other.
Registration to buy tickets included an ironic warning – they would not be available at the door to keep disruptive agents like Antifa from weaseling their way in day of. Instead, tickets needed to be purchased so attendees were registered online. Finding my way to the film room felt like making my way to a speak easy or underground church in the Soviet Union.
At the front of the dimly lit theater was Ken Pope, a Senior Fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Mr. Pope explained to a room filled with white hair and flannel wearing Vermonters some things tbey already knew and others they didn’t. Namely, we have been witnessing a communist revolution program with COVID and BLM serving as acts one and two, and the enemy is inside the house – around the country in the form of over 650 subversive Chinese indoctrination schools posing as Chinese history and culture institutes, and inside Vermont by way of the teachers union.
After listening to his description of the Chinese heritage schools, where communism is legally mandated by the Chinese Communist Party run government to be taught “only in a favorable light”, the anti-American, anti-patriarchy, anti-Christian, pro-LGBTQ themes circulating the halls of Vermont schools becomes clearer. Less clear is how teachers in Vermont are keeping their jobs with student reading and math scores hovering in the 25% success range.
Luckily the cost of living has gotten so high, we’re told by Senator Bernie Sanders on a constituent phone call a few weeks ago, town managers are struggling to attract new teachers to Vermont. Of course, he tells us before the call ends, this is all somehow Donald Trump’s fault without ever explaining how. Mr. Pope, on the other hand, credits one Neville Royce and Jody Evans with funding US student groups to embrace communism to the tune of $270 million dollars they made as former American capitalists.
Mr. Pope’s q & a session was followed by a short film testimony given by a woman who lived under communist occupied Hungary. Candidly she shares her father was a devout communist who bought the lie long enough to support the takeover only to find food rationing lines and hopelessness followed. A people’s revolution appeared to win back their freedoms only to be swiftly crushed by Soviet Russian tanks and soldiers who shot and killed some of her friends mere moments after she told them goodbye. She narrowly escaped to America where she thanked God for the freedoms to travel and speak and do business unlike her days in the Eastern bloc.
A brief speech by VDC contributor Alison Despathy began bleak but morphed into hopeful as she told us it looks like the Hungary of old in Vermont right now, but not to worry. She has participated in multiple victories for parents and civil liberties during her visits to Montpelier. She assured listeners there are plenty of legislators who are willing to develop bills, give speeches and otherwise support measures to detangle the communist influence in the state. She also gave credit to Governor Scott for standing against numerous attempts to “drive us off a cliff” at the hands of social engineers.
Attendees were given a panel discussion featuring congressional candidate Gerald Malloy, Soviet Russian ex-pat Raisa Murakhver, pastor Ed Wheeler and Vermont’s first ever Turning Point USA club chapter president Seth Fewer. Perhaps the most interesting question was answered by the young president who recently won his student body election at Spaulding High School in Barre. When asked about the future for Vermont teens he noted his winning candidacy indicates a rise in conservatism among Vermont’s gen Z. If it can happen there it can happen almost anywhere in Vermont if we give the kids the kind of support they need.
The second keynote speaker was James Lindsay, author of The Marxification of Education, making his fourth or fifth visit to the state. Lindsay, who founded New Discourses and has traveled the world educating citizens and politicians about the inner workings of woke (re: communist) ideology and it’s history, took listeners down the road from the late 1980s to the present as figures like Paolo Friere and Henry Giroux made it their mission to fulfill Antonio Gramsci’s “long march through the institutions. As it turns out Ronald Reagan’s warning it would only take a generation was generous as Lindsay notes it took Grioux and company approximately seven years to get one hundred faculty tenured, who then quickly let their colleagues pour in like migrants at the southern border.
The afternoon screening of 15 Days: The REAL Story of the Pandemic School Closures featured former Hollywood filmmaker Hawk Jensen’s portrayal of Natalya Murakhver’s rise from parent turned activist during the COVID lock-downs in New York City. A series of interviews with students as young as elementary school on up to high school reminds us of the genuine insanity and abuses wrought by our governments and, especially, the teachers union headed by Randy Weingarten. Murakhver, like Jensen, saw the pandemic for it’s communist underpinnings early on and decided to lock arms with anyone willing to stand up for children’s and parent’s rights. Murakhver recalls being flanked by a Democrat mom and Republican dad as they stood in solidarity against the mandates. It was this same spirit that motivated her to join with SPEAKVT and Restore Childhood to air the film in Burlington of all places.
One last panel dealt with the question “How do we depoliticize our schools?” Mrs. Murakhver led pointedly at ending teachers unions, encouraging teachers to withhold dues, while also reconvening family dinners as a place to teach children and assess what they’re learning.
Mr. Pope seconded the thought while mentioning only 3-6% of participants in an institution are necessary for a meaningful insurgence. He called for deprogramming current teachers, which means having difficult conversations and sharing materials from those featured. Set up screenings of 15 Days and buy copies of books like Marxification of Education to give to other parents or board members. Lastly, don’t coddle your children and rob them of building the strength necessary to handle whatever life will throw at them.
Clara Morrison, Executive Director of The Right for Vermont Foundation, shared a victory for parents in Blue Mountain district who successfully rejected a teacher’s union contract. She urged Vermonters to get educated about Prop 3 and to educate others, emphasizing education over politics.
Lindsay stated the need to break the monopoly – compete by building new schools. “Fraud has been committed” against students, parents and taxpayers and “someone may need to take it to the courts.”
Marie Teimann, co-founder and President of SPEAKVT for Parents in Education, enlightened everyone about the current two files “secrecy policy” where schools have a file for students and a separate one for that student’s parent(s), on top of Vermont’s law which establishes twelve as the age of consent. She further urged independent schools.
In all, the room spent little time bashing politicians or tripping over tired talking points as the mission is ideological more than it is partisan. At stake is freedom and the future for our children. If there is a collective worth listening to it’s the patriots and freedom fighters who realize we are the last best hope and the time to act is now.
The author is a fitness expert living in Hartford.