Building a Parallel Economy and Nurturing a New Christendom

 Building a Parallel Economy and Nurturing a New Christendom

The concept of building a parallel economy and nurturing a new Christendom offers an inspiring vision for those seeking alternative frameworks to secular society’s crumbling infrastructure. This is something we’ve been working towards here at Gab for several years now and I’m excited to share some more of that vision and highlight a few of the great people laying the foundation of a new Christendom with their work.

For those who don’t know: a parallel economy refers to the creation of an alternative economic system that operates in parallel with the existing mainstream economy. It aims to promote values that align with specific communities or ideologies. A parallel economy rooted in biblical principles serves as a platform to manifest our faith through economic practices and help lay the groundwork for a new Christendom.

We must return to the foundations of Christianity. Rediscovering the life and teachings of Jesus Christ and embracing His message of love, compassion, and grace becomes paramount above all else. This means focusing on core tenets of faith such as love for God and one another, forgiveness, and the pursuit of truth. Understanding and internalizing these principles will guide us in shaping a Christendom that is relevant and engaging for the modern age.

To build a new Christendom it is essential to engage actively with the modern world and address the challenges and opportunities it presents. Christians should actively participate in shaping public discourse, advocating for truth, and offering a compassionate but bold response to societal issues. This involves integrating faith with various aspects of life, such as politics, economics, science, and technology, in a way that aligns with Christian values and principles. We simply can’t afford to sit on the sidelines anymore.

In order to build a new Christendom we first need builders.

I’m a builder. I don’t just sit around complaining about the issues and problems in the world, I actively set out to build solutions for them. When I saw the rise of censorship by Big Tech platforms back in 2016 I took the initiative to establish a platform that aligns with my own beliefs and values. Gab is a social media platform owned by Christians that aims to provide a space for free speech while fostering an environment rooted in Christian principles. Platforms like Gab not only cater to the need for alternative social media spaces but also facilitate connections among like-minded individuals who are fostering a thriving community. Over the past several years Gab has become a crucial backbone of a growing parallel economy in the new Christendom.

The concept of a new Christendom transcends the economic sphere and envisions a society that embodies Christian values across various domains. While Christianity has influenced Western civilization throughout history, the idea of a renewed Christendom seeks to reinvigorate those values in a contemporary context. A renewed Christendom requires active engagement in shaping culture and influencing society positively. This involves Christian artists, writers, thinkers, and leaders using their talents and platforms to promote Christian values.

A group of visionary leaders has emerged on Gab as the vanguard of a new Christendom. These builders actively shaping the landscape of entertainment, music, education, and technology to provide alternatives that align with their faith and values. There are far too many to list in one post, so for now I’d like to highlight a handful in particular who I’ve been very impressed with.

Michael Foster: Sherwood – A Beacon of Wholesome Entertainment

Michael Foster is spearheading the creation of Sherwood, a one-of-a-kind streaming service that serves as a home for ebooks, audiobooks, and video content. Recognizing the scarcity of high-quality Christian entertainment, Foster envisioned a platform that offers a wide range of wholesome content. Sherwood caters to individuals seeking faith-based narratives, family-friendly shows, and spiritually uplifting content, effectively addressing the need for a safe space for Christian audiences.

Brian Sauvé: Producing Inspiring Christian Music

Brian Sauvé has devoted himself to the production of Christian music that resonates with the hearts of believers. By crafting melodious tunes and heartfelt lyrics that reflect Christian values, Brian’s music serves as a source of inspiration, encouragement, and worship for countless listeners. Through his artistic expressions, Brian contributes to the development of a thriving Christian music scene, nurturing the spiritual lives of individuals and fostering a deeper connection with God.

Roman Roads Press: Illuminating Homeschool Curriculum and Books

Roman Roads Press stands as an essential pillar in the realm of Christian education. With a focus on homeschool curriculum and books, this publishing house equips parents, teachers, and students with materials that integrate faith and knowledge. By creating well-researched and thought-provoking resources, Roman Roads Press nurtures critical thinking, biblical literacy, and intellectual growth within the homeschooling community, ensuring a solid foundation for the next generation of Christian thinkers.

The new Christendom is being built by people like this who recognize the importance of actively shaping the cultural landscape according to their faith and values. These contributions bring light, hope, and a renewed sense of purpose to those seeking to align their lives with their faith. As builders of the new Christendom continue their work, their impact promises to shape a brighter future for the Christian community and beyond.

Building a new Christendom in the modern age is an ongoing journey that requires sincere commitment, self-reflection, and adaptability. By rediscovering the foundations of Christianity, nurturing spiritual growth, engaging with the modern world, and embodying Christ’s love, we can create a transformative parallel Christian community. Let’s embark on this journey together, embracing the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead, and strive to build a Christendom that shines as a beacon of hope, truth, and love in our chaotic and changing world.

Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab.com
Jesus Christ is King

Tucker Carlson: The left will now use armed agents to enforce their radical ideology.

 Tucker Carlson: The left will now use armed agents to enforce their radical ideology. They are uninterested in actual crimes like murder but will arrest you for caring about your child's education... They can throw you in jail if you point out that what they're doing is hurting your children. By that standard, we're in trouble, a whole lot more conduct is about to become criminal in the eyes of the Department of Justice. Remember all those parents from school board meetings this summer? Presumably, Merrick Garland is going to investigate them too.

https://tv.gab.com/channel/gee/view/tucker-carlson-th

Destroying your civilization by dumbing it down

 

Destroy your civilization by dumbing it down

Aug 2012

by Brett Stevens.

Our modern social systems all begin with democracy, and democracy has a fundamental problem: it is based on popularity with humans, and not reality.
Where an individual leader can become deluded some of the time, a group can be deluded nearly all of the time, simply because as social creatures we want to believe what our friends want to be true is true.
With enough people together, as in a committee, a socially coercive force emerges called politics. Will my friends still like me if I vote this way, or that way? Will I stand out enough to attract friends, mates and business partners if I vote for the same stuff others do?
Even more, popularity rules us through what people purchase. If you want an A+ grade product, and 51% of the market is satisfied by a C+ grade product, the C+ grade is what will be the norm and the A+, if it exists, will be a luxury and cost proportionately more.
In addition to this basic conceit, there are at least two major problems with popularity-based systems:

1. Recognition. The voters/buyers only approve of what they recognize, and they only recognize what they already understand. Anything beyond the capacity of the majority might as well exist on another planet, because it’s moonman speak to them.
2. False assessment. In order to make a hierarchy of ability that is recognized by the crowd, such societies rely on tests and measurements that generally assess your ability to take the test, not to do the job itself.

The result is a massive dumbing-down where the realistic range of necessary possibilities is reduced to a simplistic, one-dimensional surrogate because that is palatable to voters/buyers.
Most governments now achieve this through public schooling. They reason that school should address the needs of a mythical “average” student, and create a lowest common denominator out of that and force everyone to conform to that low standard.
The result is walking zombies who throw around words like logical, science, rational, clearly, etc. and random scientific facts as if these were in themselves arguments.
On the surface, their goal is to educate and enlighten, but underneath the surface the method is much clearer: eliminate anything above the level that the voters/buyers are comfortable with.
Such a society can fool itself but no one else. While it reduces its own standards, and produces its new elites, these elites aren’t actually elites. They’re just socially elite.
As always in the barnyard, the herd takes a vote, declares itself to be reality, and uses that new “official” designation to do whatever it wanted to in the first place, creating a disaster that takes a long time to detonate.
They always blame someone else. In the beginning, they blame the most visible enemy; in the end, they blame paranoid conspiracies. It is by this method that great empires pass into irrelevance.

Lib-Lab-Con: Education in Bolton Put Behind Foreign Aid, War and EU Payments

Lib-Lab-Con: Education in Britain Put Behind Foreign Aid, War and EU Payments

Posted 1st @ BNP Ideas on Oct , 2011

Government spending on education will fall by more than 13 percent over the next four years, according to respected think tank Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). At the same time, billions extra will be spent on foreign aid, wars, and EU payments.

According to the IFS, the education budget cuts will be the biggest since the 1950s, with school and college building projects facing the brunt of the cutbacks. The IFS said that funding for educational building projects would drop by 50 percent during the next four years.

Higher education would lose about 40 percent of its spending as well but universities “would claw back some money due to the increased tuition fees introduced by the coalition government,” the IFS said.

“In schools, those with students from affluent backgrounds would see drastic funding cuts although schools with more deprived students would have their funding protected due to the introduction of the pupil premium,” the IFS ominously added.

In reality this means that the Third World immigrant-dominated inner city schools (which mysteriously, are always somehow “deprived”) will not have their funding cut, while schools in whiter and therefore “less deprived” areas will.

At the same time, the Coalition government has announced budget increases for International Aid (set to increase to well over £11 billion and payments to the EU of £8 billion.

The defence budget is currently set at £37 billion, but this does not include the costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Libya, which are drawn out of the additional £125 billion “other” fund which the government uses to meet “unexpected” expenses.

At the same time, the annual government deficit increases by around £170 billion more each year.

Last year, the Coalition government announced university budget cuts in England of £449 million, which led to a reduction of 6,000 university places.

At the same time, the government cut teaching budgets by £215 million, froze research funding and reduced the buildings budget by 15 percent.

Social Mobility and Equality of Opportunity

Social Mobility and Equality of Opportunity

Posted at BNP Ideas

By Andrew Brons MEP.

The Political Left believes that children are born with equal potential so if pupils from a poor background fail, their failure can be attributed to disadvantage and a denial of equality of opportunity. That is bad enough but those who would be seen as being from the Political Right seem to share their view.

The Daily Telegraph’s Education Editor, Graeme Paton, (17th June) referred to data from the Organisation for Economic co-operation and Development, in which it was shown that only 25% of ‘poor children’, in Britain, managed to exceed expectation at school, compared with 31% of ‘poor children’ in developed countries generally.

This suggested, according to Mr. Paton, that ‘disadvantaged children’ have less chance of climbing the social ladder than in most developed nations.

Indeed the Education Secretary, one Michael Gove, was reported to have said: “The scandal ‘which’ (I believe he meant ‘that’) haunts my conscience is the plight of those students from the poorest backgrounds in the poorest neighbourhoods, who need us to act if their right to a decent future is to be guaranteed”.

The OECD report revealed that 70% of poor pupils in parts of China exceeded the standard expected of them. Our 25% looked extremely poor in comparison or did it?

There are probably more talented children living in poverty in rural China, because their families have not previously been rescued by an effective education system.

It is small wonder that equality of opportunity should now be revealing their existence. There are still talented children in Britain, especially from poorer families, who fall through the net of educational opportunity. However, there are probably fewer of them.

The problem is that the Political Class generally confuses two related but distinct concepts: social mobility and equality of opportunity.

Indeed they are frequently treated as though they meant the same thing. Many commentators have bemoaned the fact that social mobility has fallen and they have attributed this to a denial of equality of opportunity. In fact the fall in social mobility is attributable to the success of equality of opportunity!

It is difficult to pinpoint a year in which equality of opportunity was attained but 1947 – the year in the Education Act 1944 was implemented- is as good as any. That was the year in which secondary education was provided for all and selective exams decided, more or less on merit, who would receive a Secondary Grammar education.

Since then, there have three or more generations enjoying equality of opportunity. Initially there would have been substantial social mobility resulting from the new equality of opportunity. Pupils, with innate ability, from humble backgrounds went to grammar schools and some from there to universities and other higher education colleges.

The professions and management positions ceased to be the preserve of those with upper and middle class backgrounds and became meritocracies. People within those occupational groups also tended to marry and procreate (now just procreate) with people of similar abilities. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that differences in intelligence are attributable to heredity rather than to environment. This has resulted in those in management and the professions becoming an intellectual caste and not simply a class caste.

Whilst there were many people of innately high intelligence in poorer occupations, before the advent of educational equality of opportunity, that number has fallen steadily in subsequent generations. There are still gifted children to be found in less well-off social classes but there are fewer now than there were and the proportion will continue to fall as they are ‘rescued’ by the education system from a future of economic failure.

Social mobility has indeed slowed down and that should be seen as a tribute to educational equality of opportunity.

Unfortunately, the story does not end there. The expansion of higher education by the Major and Blair governments came at a price. Whilst it was easily affordable to provide maintenance grants and pay tuition fees, when 7% of students went on to full-time higher education, this became impossible when the figure exceeded 40%.

The result is that all students must fund their own maintenance and pay their own tuition fees.

There are now students of mediocre ability from rich backgrounds who take a university place, whilst poorer more able students might shrink from going on to higher education if the experience should carry with it a burden of debt for several years.

We have seen a move away from equality of opportunity. It must be hoped that it will not continue. An answer might be for the most able students, if from poor backgrounds, and pursuing the most useful courses, to be granted a remission of tuition fees and to be given maintenance grants. That would preserve equality of opportunity. It would probably not add to social mobility appreciably.

However, of greater importance, is that there must not be a retreat from reason and reality by those who are seen to be on the Political Right.

Liberation in Education Courtesy of the Marxist NUS

Liberation in Education Courtesy of the NUS

Posted at BNP Ideas

Taking a break from campaigning against student fees, the National Union of Students have found time to publish a paper on liberation within the education system. How….liberating.

It all boils down to the same. More minorities should be included in course literature, etc etc and so on ad nauseum. Minorities would learn better if an obscure Arabian mathematician or a bleary eyed beat poet were made the cornerstone of lessons.

The long and short of it is that liberation comes from diversity and inclusiveness.

We’re sorry that Shakespeare wasn’t a one legged lesbian refugee from Uganda who had sought to escape persecution in her homeland and had come to enrich Britain.

We apologise for the fact that neither Sir Isaac Newton nor Sir Alexander Fleming were black transexuals.

Our hearts bleed with sorrow that Coleridge or Tolkien weren’t homosexual Muslims who penned their masterpieces in between prayers to Mecca and bouts of the love that dare not speak its name.

Get over it!

It does not aid education one iota to have people elevated to the level of reference works, icons of learning, or eminents in their field with official recognition simply because they happen to tick the right boxes on a diversity survey.

Conforming with an education systems own ideological bias and obsession with all things diverse is no substitute for attainment or educational value.

Equality and inclusiveness, if such things are even possible, and most definitely when enforced by the insane criteria of the PC zealots, destroy the educational system by replacing merit with identity.

Relevance now comes not because of someone’s achievements, but because of who they are and their ability to tick as many of the minority boxes as possible.

Still, what else is the NUS other than a product of that – the new generation of those schooled in diversity, carrying on the tradition of putting ideology before education and determined to ensure that the next generation have been spoon fed on all that is diverse.

Lies About Fascists or National Socialists in the English Defence League

 

NO! Fascists or National Socialists in the English Defence League?

EuropeNews July 2011
By Henrik R. Clausen

For people dealing seriously with the threat of Islamism in the West, two of the most common slurs are those of being either “Fascist”, “Nazi” (National Socialist) or “Extreme right-wing”. The English Defence League, probably the broadest based and most influential anti-Islamism movement in Europe today, certainly had their share of those, on top of extensive government harrassment
Now, if one pauses for a moment, these frequently repeated slurs are quite puzzling. Before we examine each of them, let us take a clip from the EDL Mission Statement:

Promoting Democracy And The Rule Of Law By Opposing Sharia The European Court of Human Rights has declared that “sharia is incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy”. Despite this, there are still those who are more than willing to accommodate sharia norms, and who believe that sharia can operate in partnership with our existing traditions and customs. In reality, sharia cannot operate fully as anything other than a complete alternative to our existing legal, political, and social systems. It is a revolution that this country does not want, and one that it must resist. Sharia is most definitely a threat to our democracy.

That's a pretty clear pro-democracy statement, and one may wonder how one could sanely oppose a purpose like this? One obviously interested party is the Islamists, whose intention to implement Islamic law anywhere possible would be seriously impaired by opposition. Another is those who do not understand the real intention of Islam in its fundamental form, to submit as much of the world as possible to Islamic rule. That would include people who are so joyfully naïve that they cannot imagine such sinister intentions to be possible.
Another clip from the EDL Mission Statement reads:

The EDL is therefore keen to draw its support from people of all races, all faiths, all political persuasions, and all lifestyle choices. Under its umbrella, all people in England, whatever their background, or origin, can stand united in a desire to stop the imposition of the rules of Islam on non-believers.

That would address slurs of 'racism' and other stuff. Note the “all political persuasions” bit – the EDL is not a political party with an agenda of “Big Government” or “Small Government”. What matters is countering religious – specifically Islamic – intimidation. Most Westerners would find the notion of forcing Sharia law upon anyone in the West that by default they'd be fine with any move to oppose it. Still the EDL is subject to much slander, explicit or implicit, as in this Guardian article.
And further:

Working In Solidarity With Others Around The World The EDL is keen to join with others who share our values, wherever they are in the world, and from whatever cultural background they derive.

This is an internationalist outlook, not a British supremacist one. Any concern that the EDL might secretly the return of the glory days of the British Empire should be put to rest by this.
Now, talk can be cheap, missions statements deceptive, and it could turn out that these sane-sounding intentions are really a cover for something sinister. This is where you have investigative journalists examining things undercover, like Sigurd Ericson did with the English Defence League. In his report published at EuropeNews, he gave them a clean bill of health with regards to racism, fascism and violence-prone. Talking to both leadership and the rank-and-file of the EDL, he found that it consists of straight English citizens concerned with the threat of Sharia in Britain, and working in line with the EDL Mission Statement to counter it.
In any case, it is good to know the substance of what the EDL is being accused of promoting:
First Fascism, an ideology out of post-WWI Italy: Fascism is totalitarian, in that it regulates every aspect of the citizens' lives. It is single-party, in that the “perfect” system needs no dissent. It is authoritarian, believing in the wisdom of one supreme leader. It is violent, in that its adherents freely apply violence to implement it, then later war to glorify it. Finally, it forbids any opposition to the fascist state.
Mussolini, the head of the original Italian fascist movement, was an active socialist before World War I, but was expelled from the socialist party for his pro-war attitude. Originally devised as a total welfare state (thus the term 'Totalitarian'), the fascism turned out not to viable in practice, degenerated into opportunism, and eventually disgraced itself entirely through the alliance with the National Socialists of Germany.
Since fascism is explicitly anti-democratic and the EDL explicitly pro-democratic, blaming the EDL for being 'fascists' fails a simple “Check the facts” test. Anyone making that charge should back it up with extensive and detailed evidence, not merely personal opinions and judgements.
Next up is “Nazism”, or more correctly, “National Socialism”, an ideology out of post-WWI Germany. In contrast with fascism, which has been emulated in a variety of forms both before WWII and later, National Socialism doesn't really transplant well, neither in space or in time, from Weimar Germany to anywhere else. If one studies the circumstances of Weimar Germany, for instance in the excellent book When Money Dies (whose prime concern is the hyperinflation), the inapplicability of National Socialism under any other circumstances becomes quite clear. The anti-Capitalist sentiment of National Socialism in Germany might have some resonance with the extreme left in some places, but largely comes across as a confused and incoherent, including a profound misunderstanding of capitalism, as this quote from an original National Socialist flyer (propaganda nausea alert) shows:

What does anti-Semitism have to do with socialism? I would put the question this way: What does the Jew have to do with socialism? Socialism has to do with labor. When did one ever see him working instead of plundering, stealing and living from the sweat of others? As socialists we are opponents of the Jews because we see in the Hebrews the incarnation of capitalism, of the misuse of the nation’s goods.

The English Defence League has pre-empted any slurs about Nazi sympathies through creating an explicit Jewish Division. That should send any self-respecting National Socialist scrambling for the exit, and cause any allegations about such sympathies within the EDL to vanish in a puff of logic and laughter.
However, having an explicit Jewish branch opens the door to a different class of problems, that of Jewish supremacists, who are more interested in defending Israel than in defending England. While obviously unrelated to the idea of a National Socialist agenda, this can be difficult in itself:
Just recently, the leader of the EDL Jewish Division, Roberta Moore, quit the position, quoting that “she had been offered work on "an international level" elsewhere”, complaining that the EDL ”had been hijacked by elements who wanted to use it "for their own Nazi purposes". ”, and posting the subtle slander ”"I sincerely hope that the leaders will get the strength to squash the Nazis within,"”
These are serious allegations, but fortunately they fly in the face of common sense. Not only has the EDL made quite a few moves (racial inclusiveness, Jewish Division, pro-Israel rallies) that would scare away any self-respecting Nazi. It also makes no sense that Britain, who carried out the heaviest lifting during World War II would be home to any meaningful pro-Nazi sentiment.
Also, given the fact of the Holocaust and the endorsement of the Holocaust by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, it makes little sense to accuse an anti-Sharia movement of having sympathies for the National Socialists. Doing so incurs a burden of proof to lift, or the allegations become libel – and in the case of the National Socialists, even blood libel. Failing to provide adequate evidence for allegations as severe as these constitutes intellectual dishonesty. Further, internal disagreements as to how much the EDL should concern itself with the plight of Israel should never degenerate into drawing the Nazi card inside an organisation that has already distanced itself solidly from Nazi ideology.
Third up is the most mysterious and intangible of allegation, that of “right-wing extremism”, which is a really badly defined epithet.

1. One interpretation is that this means National Socialism, but given the details above, that does not make the remotest of sense.
2. Another interpretation, looking at the origins of “Left” and “Right” in the French Revolution, is that it means adherents of the “Ancién Regime”, protecting the special rights of royalty and nobility. But while the EDL is likely to have its share of monarchists in its ranks, there is no evidence to support this idea.
3. A third interpretation of the “Far right” label routinely applied to the EDL is that it means dismantling the welfare state and revert to a minimalist state, in line with what Ron Paul is promoting in the US. Since the EDL spans all political orientations, that is nonsensical as well.

In short, the slur “Extreme right-wing” makes no sense and should simply be disregarded. In recent days, the situation in the EDL has drawn a bit of commotion in the blogosphere. The latter of these articles is woefully uninformed, as the concerns raised there have been addressed a year ago, including on this video The John Snowy Shaw Show. Some of these articles are superficial, some are an avalanche of details of questionable relevance. One can pore over these for hours, trying to figure out who did Right and who did Wrong. But quite honestly:
Why waste your time nit-picking when the house is on fire? For as Reagan is often quoted for:

The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20 percent traitor.

The bottom line: The English Defence League is the broadest and most effective anti-Jihad and anti-Sharia movement on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. It has achieved much in a mere two years, and continues to operate in spite of government harassment and systematic slander from the establishment. The EDL deserves emulation – the highest form of flattery - not vilification.

Education: A Radical Rethink

Education: A Radical Rethink

By Richard Barnbrook.  at http://bnpideas.com/

Just imagine for a moment, what it would be like if you could neither read nor write. The letters on this page that you are now subconsciously deciphering, would be incomprehensible!

You would also have difficulty in understanding sign posts, instructions leaflets, warning notices, correspondence, advertisements, newspapers, not to mention novels, articles, events programmes and the internet. A whole area of modern life would be to you literally, a closed book.

And yet this is the terrible impediment experienced to a greater or lesser extent by some 30,000 (about one in 20) children leaving school in Britain today. And as many as one in ten of 16 year olds (some 60,000) left school in 2005 did not pass GCSE English or Maths.

‘Education, education, education’ was a central slogan in the mantra of Tony Blair’s Nu-Labour. And yet despite throwing millions into the schools and education budget, the fact that so many children habitually under-achieve, has to be one of the most scandalous travesties of modern times.

And simply chucking good money after bad into propping up an inefficient system that is fundamentally flawed, is not the answer.

Indeed, like most of the problems which British society now has to reckon with, the rot set in largely in the 1960s.

The levelling down ‘one size fits all’ emphasis was on Comprehensive education, with large unwieldy and unruly schools in which, because of their size, individuals are just faces in the crowd. Corporal punishment in schools was abolished in Britain in 1967, and so discipline became and continues to be nothing more than a joke to bored and disruptive pupils intent on causing trouble.

But to add to this, the syllabus itself has become so prescriptive, over-burdened and progressive, that those whose learning rate is slower and who take longer to grasp the basics of a subject in the early years have virtually no hope of ever catching up.

Think what it must be like to have to sit through lessons in geometry when you haven’t grasped the concept of simple addition. Or, to broaden the analogy, classes in how to make a wedding cake when you can’t follow how to make a victoria sandwich?

I’m sure you can think of similar analogies from any field of expertise. The whole experience becomes meaningless, boring and humiliating, when one is being taught a subject at a level beyond ones comprehension. And yet this is the regular, monotonous and pointless routine for thousands of our school children, day after day and year on year.

The current school leaving age is 16, and I think that it should remain as such. Each and every child is therefore entitled to receive full time education from the age of 5- eleven years in all.

But my innovative proposition would alter the automatic progression from year to year up the school; promotion to the next class would depend wholly on whether an adequate standard is attained at the end of year assessment.

So until the child is thoroughly familiar with the standard of that year, there would be no promotion to the higher year group. For some, this would inevitably mean that their eleven years in the state education system never takes them much beyond primary school. But at least then, every child would have had every possible opportunity to enable him/her to be able to read and write fluently!

Although this proposal could be considered radical, it would as I see it, completely alter and improve the level of achievement and motivation of our children. The major milestone for all children, other than the end of year tests, would be the ‘primary examination,’ which would be at the end of what is now Key Stage 2, at age 11.

At this level, the child/young person would be able to demonstrate a comprehensive all round ability in literacy and the spoken word, numeracy, and elementary science. But in keeping with the rules of this suggested model, pupils who were not up to standard would have to resit the assessment the following year and thereafter until they attain the satisfactory standard.

Although in this day and age when so much emphasis is placed on the need to have a degree, a child that has been thoroughly taught emerges from primary school equipped with sufficient skills to make his or her way in the world.

Those who have achieved a good level at Key Stage 2 SATS can read and write fluently and are already basically numerate. In addition, they have should also covered some history (albeit there is insufficient emphasis on English History on the current syllabus) and some geography and grasped basic concepts in science.

Fluency in literacy is of course the key to education as a whole and once this has been achieved, the sky is the limit- a young person then has the option of developing his or her own skills and following his/ her own leanings in career choice, or indeed of going back into education at a later date. But a child who has not mastered the basic three Rs is in no way suited to yet more education at a higher level. No wonder there are so many disaffected truants in secondary school! For them, the experience of learning has become an agonising pain, rather than the fulfilling pleasure that it ought to be.

The implementation of such a change would cost relatively little in terms of extra money, although with mixed age ranges, more supervision would be required. But this would amount next to nothing in the grand scheme of the education budget. And it would make such a positive difference to the lives of thousands.

There are other alterations which I would advocate that would make a huge improvement to our educational achievements. Modern syllabi have become grossly unwieldy; far less ground should be covered, but it should covered more thoroughly. The vast amount of paperwork that teachers have to produce simply to prove that they are doing the job of teaching, ought to be abolished.

More emphasis should be given to learning by rote to reinforce basic principles and inculcate ‘gems of learning.’ English history should be taught as a core subject in order to instil a sense of pride and national identity. Corporal punishment should be re-introduced immediately, in order to reinstate discipline and respect for authority.

Of course, this is a universal blue-print, designed to ensure that all our children have the best chance of achieving full literacy and numeracy. However, those more able, who passed the new end of year tests, would proceed steadily up the year progression ladders as at present. The other improvements suggested above, -would apply across the board in order to improve the system as a whole.

In my view, teachers are highly undervalued. The teaching profession could be said to be perhaps the most responsible and valuable profession, second only to that of medicine. It is teachers who have the task of instructing and civilising the next generation and thereby of safeguarding this country’s future. We are happy as a society to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds in salaries to lawyers, and, as we have seen recently, to bankers and financial speculators, with little or no overall gain to the common good. But the teaching profession has been blighted because of low pay, coupled with the inability to impose discipline, both of which has resulted in a lack of respect. Consequently, it is not always easy to attract recruits of the very highest calibre.

So I would advocate raising teachers’ salaries to a basic of say £50,000 for a primary school class teacher, rising to double this for a head of department in at secondary level. We need to attract teachers of the very best ability, moral fibre and dedication and make entry into the profession as competitive and as selective as it is for law and medicine.

This strategy could be partially funded with money currently wasted on ‘nothing courses’ in colleges of further education and universities. But a country that has money to burn on pointless foreign wars surely can find the resources to properly educate its young.

We need to get back to basics and common sense in education, before another generation of non-attainers is condemned to the scrap-heap of illiteracy, disillusion and recidivism. A good thorough, basic and enabling education is a ‘pearl of great price’ and it needs to be seen and valued as such. But for many, learning is not something that one just picks up- it needs to be inculcated.

And in my view, these proposals would enable the highest standards of literacy and attainment to become the norm.

Why is intelligence frowned upon?’ – Great Article on the Dumbing Down of Children

‘Why is cleverness frowned upon?’ – Great Article on the Dumbing Down of Children and the Education System

I’ve came across this article from The Independent describing the “non-learning”
happening in UK schools. Funny,

Why is cleverness frowned upon?
Tom Hodgkinson
Having three children in the state primary system, I’ve seen the results of New Labour’s Brave New World anti-intellectualism up close. Academic work has been largely dropped. Times tables, spelling, grammar and good handwriting are not taught. One teacher told us that correcting spelling might interrupt “the creative flow”. In the playground, age-old games such as conkers and It are banned, as they might upset someone. The local authority, we are told, has also banned the ancient game of football, because it encourages competitive behaviour. Instead, pupils are treated to lavish praise, sex education and colouring in, plus a big dose of television via the whiteboards. The place is awash with laptops. There is a therapeutic ethos, and in “circle time”, pupils are encouraged to talk about their problems at home. Cleverness is frowned upon: yesterday my daughter said she didn’t like being clever and was considering doing bad work so she would be moved down a set.
As it gradually dawned on my wife and me that there was very little of what we would call teaching going on, we decided to step in and fill the gaps ourselves. (Mr Gove has promised a return to a more traditional agenda, but how long will it take?) So now at home we drill the children in times tables, teach them the rudiments of grammar, and we all learn Latin together with a tutor via Skype. We play competitive games and do wrestling. We tell them off. We praise them for good work, but tick them off for bad work. And in a sense this is all the wrong way round: schools are doing the parenting and the parents are doing the schooling.
The upside, it’s true, is that children enjoy school. Our kids react with horror when we threaten them with home education. The downside is that parents are forced to take on the burden of educating their children properly, as the state has shrugged it off.
I hear similar anecdotes about the secondary system: one English teacher told a parent we know that they didn’t teach spelling because pupils could use the spellcheck on their computers. Instead of books, “texts” are taught. A dumbed-down relativism has led to the idea that a web page or an advertisement is as worthy of study as William Blake. I blame Roland Barthes: I myself was briefly infatuated by the French post-structuralist writer, whose book Mythologies was a big hit with trendy undergraduates. We liked the way he used his considerable intellect to write about the Citroë* DS. But really Mythologies was just a cerebral game, and shouldn’t have been taken as the basis for a whole education system.
Another culprit would be the journalist Toby Young. His magazine Modern Review, which flourished briefly in the early 1990s, celebrated the idea that you could write about Terminator 2 as if it was high art. All things were equal. There was nothing better or worse, and beauty was in the eye of the beholder. Mr Young has thankfully rejected this creed and is now attempting to set up a school which will concentrate on Latin and grammar rather than empathy and self-esteem.
Oh yes, self-esteem. If everyone has lots of self-esteem, the theory goes, no one will commit crime and everybody will be nice to each other. But the theory is clearly nonsense. When combined with an anti-academic education system, the result is children who are stupid, but who have a lot of self-esteem. And that is a worrying combination. My local landlord tells me that the graduates from the local comp who he employs in the pub not only cannot spell “gravy”, but get upset when you point this out. We should remember that self-esteem under its old name, pride, was considered sinful.
The combination of stupidity and self-esteem, though, makes for very good consumers. Every child is taught shopping and spending skills to a high level. It is all summed up in advertising slogans such as “Because you’re worth it”. The commercial world continues to promote the self-bigging-up agenda through products. If you’re feeling down, you go shopping, and because you have not been taught how to think, you don’t realise that you are being conned.
I would dearly love to start an anti-materialist advertising campaign that featured a monk with his head bowed and the slogan, “Because I’m not worth it.”
Self-esteem, or self-confidence, in any case, comes not from self-esteem classes, but from ability. “Competence is the foundation of happiness,” wrote William Cobbett. Teachers, simply, should teach knowledge, or scientia, and skills, or arti. That sort of teaching, and not happiness lessons, will lead to a fulfilled life.

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Dumbing Down Society Part I: Foods, Beverages and Meds

Dumbing Down Society Pt 2: Mercury in Foods and Vaccines

Transhumanism, Psychological Warfare an

THE STATE OF EDUCATION IN BRITAIN IN 2011

THE STATE OF EDUCATION IN BRITAIN TODAY

  | Written by Rev. Rob West at http://christiancouncilofbritain.co.uk/

According to Dr David Starkey, the TV historian and author, the state of education in Britain is dire, not because of bad teachers but because the lack of discipline in classes and schools mean that even the very best of teachers would not be able to get through to the pupils.  Despite massive salaries being paid to qualified teachers, to head teachers and super heads; and despite the immense amount of money spent on resources and computers, all is failing because of a lack of attention to the obvious - the children cannot, or will not listen, because the teachers, really, have no authority to make them.  And they have no authority, or little authority, because both the schools and the law will not give them any.  
This is not rocket-science of course: our Victorian great-grandmothers could have told us all of this: that teaching and learning and children do not flourish where freedom, over-equality and a total free-for-all prevails.  What does flourish is mayhem.  The children think it is great: that they can muck about, jump on desks, assault staff and not learn anything at all.  But then they would: they are children after all.  What amazes us all is not that the children are quite happy with this, at least quite a few of them some of the time; but that the governors, the full-time teachers and the heads and super-heads can put up with it and pretend that it is really not as bad as that.  But Dr David Starchy thinks otherwise.
At one point he refused to teach.  Correction: at one point he refused to attempt to teach.  He added that what struck him about teaching and learning in schools is that you spend hardly any time teaching the subject.
“You are like a lion tamer dealing with savage beasts.  The saddest thing is that you totally fail to get through.  The children are destroyed by this process. It is unkind to students and to teachers.  The idea was if you get a group of wonderful teachers and then the kids will respond and do wonderful things.  This is not possible without the right structure and ethos in the school.”  Amen to that!  But he is only stating the obvious.
Why is it that politicians, leaders and Church leaders cannot see, or do not want to see the obvious? Why is it that we are all involved to some extent in a conspiracy of silence not to state the obvious because, my goodness, it needs stating?  How long can the debacle of modern “education” go on before we realise that it is costing us plenty and we are getting nothing or little out of it; indeed we are storing-up trouble for the future.  My experience is in schools and to some extent in post-16 education. I can confirm all of Dr Starkey’s pertinent observations.  It has been going on since the ending of corporal punishment in 1986.  Hardly surprising, really, but so few seem to wish to couple the cause and effect together, despite all the emphasis on cause-and-effect in modern science.  It is just not politically expedient or rather politically correct.
So long as the teachers and the teaching super-heads draw their salaries it does not matter if no teaching goes on at all.  When will the tax-paying public begin to realise that schools are in danger of becoming one big tax-mulching scheme for the benefit not of education and the pupils but the staff who keep these zoos and adopt “survival techniques” for the animals which live in them!
for more articles on modern britan and the Christian Faith please visit http://christiancouncilofbritain.co.uk/

Con/Dem UK Government Report Ignores Immigrant Effect in Destruction of Britain’s Educational System

New Government Report Ignores Immigrant Effect in Destruction of Britain’s Educational System

 The British National Party Newsroom

A new Government report on declining educational levels in Britain has deliberately ignored the effect of immigrants in this process, a strategy which has been repeated by the controlled media.

According to the report, commissioned by the Secretary of State for Health, almost half of all boys in school aged five years are falling behind in educational standards.

The report said that only 44.5 percent of five-year-old children in Brent, North London are “progressing quickly enough at school” and that almost half of five-year-old boys are “failing in their development by their first year of school.”

Furthermore, the report, called the Marmot Review after its author, Sir Michael Marmot, said that in some parts of the country as many as six out of 10 boys are lagging behind the levels of behaviour and understanding they should have achieved.

Apparently the national figure of all five-year-olds who are not meeting standards is 44 percent.

The figures contain huge regional variations which are clearly linked to race and immigration, but which the report stoically ignores.

For example, in Solihull, West Midlands, almost seven in ten youngsters — 69.3 percent — have reached a “good” level of development, while in Richmond upon Thames, Surrey, the figure is 68.8 percent. These areas still have significantly large indigenous school age populations.

“In contrast, in deprived Haringey, North London, just 41.9 percent of five-year-olds have got to the same levels, while in Brent, North London, the figure is 44.5 percent,” the report continued.

Both those areas have very high young demographic immigrant trends, and in the school years under study, Third World origin immigrants are far and away the majority population.

Furthermore, the report says, in Tower Hamlets, 41 percent of homes are dependent on state handouts, but in Wokingham, Berkshire, it is just five percent.

Once again the racial demographics of the two areas are completely ignored. Tower Hamlets has been almost completely colonised by Third World immigrants, while Wokingham remains majority indigenous British.

The deceit about the real cause of the collapsing educational system is carried on by the controlled media.

In its coverage of the report, for example, the Daily Mail used a posed photograph of white five-year-olds to illustrate the article.

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Crisis for Horwich and Bolton British Students as ConDem Regime Makes Foreign Aid Financial Priority

Crisis for British Students as ConDem Regime Makes Foreign Aid Financial Priority

The British National Party Newsroom

University tuition fees are set to rise across the board to £9,000 per year, directly contrary to earlier promises from Universities Minister David Willetts that this would only happen in “exceptional cases.”

The universities budget cut of 40 percent, announced in October last year by Chancellor George Osborne, saw funding reduced from £7.1 billion to £4.2 billion.

The foreign aid budget was increased at the same time from £9 billion to £12.1 billion, and spending on the war in Afghanistan continued to rise to well over £4 billion per year.

In effect, this means that the Tory and Lib-Dem coalition has spent three times as much on foreign aid and wars than on educating British kids.

When the university budget cuts were announced, the government said that the maximum fee of £9,000 per year would only apply in "exceptional circumstances" where universities meet "much tougher conditions on widening participation and fair access".

Now however, it has emerged that the vast majority of universities intend to charge the full £9,000 a year tuition fee.

Oxford and Cambridge universities were the first to announce their intention to charge the maximum £9,000 fee. According to student newspaper sources, others are set to shortly follow their lead.

Currently, maximum fees in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are set at £3,290 per annum. In Scotland, university is free to Scottish and EU students, and costs £1,820 per year for English, Welsh students.

The public is becoming increasingly uneasy with the extent of the budget cuts, particularly given the fact that the coalition government seems to put foreign aid, war and EU membership at a higher priority than education in Britain.

According to a new opinion poll conducted by ComRes poll, 69 percent of voters thought that they would be worse off personally as a result of the coalition's measures and a similar number thought the budget cuts were “unfair.”

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Tuition Fees Debacle: £4 Billion Slashed off University Budgets, but £20 Billion Spent on Illegal Wars

Tuition Fees Debacle: £4 Billion Cut off University Budget, but £20 Billion Spent on Illegal Wars

The British National Party Newsroom

The controlled media has refused to compare the £4 billion university budget cut — which is at the heart of the decision to raise tuition fees and the student riots in London — to the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have now exceeded £20 billion.

Television viewers the world over have been shown the riots on Parliament Square, but not one of the mass media outlets has dared mention the fact that the Labour, Liberal Democratic and Conservative parties have all supported far bigger expenditures on fighting illegal and unjustified wars in the Middle East than on educating British kids.

There is, of course, no excuse for scenes witnessed on television and in the media of “students” urinating on statues and attacking police.

However, the British National Party can fully understand student anger over the cuts which have led to the tuition fee increases.

According to official figures released in June this year, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost the British taxpayer more than £20 billion.

This includes £18 billion for military operations as well as “overseas development and aid” which has, as recent Wikileaks cable releases have shown, has largely been siphoned off by corrupt Afghan warlords.

The total figure of £20.34 billion does not include the salaries of soldiers or paying for their long-term injuries and mental health care.

The current unrest amongst students has its root cause in the fact that universities in England have had their subsidies cut by more than £4 billion.

The cuts have forced universities to resort to increased fees in order to make up the shortfall in public funding.

The spending review cuts announced by Chancellor George Osborne included a cut in the higher education budget from £7.1 billion to £4.2 billion.

As a result of the latest vote in Parliament, universities have been granted the right to increase tuition fees from the current maximum of £3,290 a year to £9,000 per year.

In effect, this means that three quarters of students will be faced with a tripling of their education bill, with the middle classes being hardest hit, as always. In terms of subsidies and other calculations, middle class students will see their university fees rise by as much as six times the current levels.

The British National Party remains committed to the principle of the abolition of university fees.

It is nothing short of treason for the ConDem regime and its Labour Party Tweedle Dee clone to support illegal and immoral foreign wars at the expense of educating British youth.

The BNP does not endorse the violence shown at the demonstrations, but shares in the anger of students at the vicious betrayal of this nation’s interests by the criminal gangsters currently occupying the Houses of Parliament.

The time has come to make the demand “Fund Education, not War” heard loud and clear across this land.

* The education budget cuts are also a fraction of the £12 billion “foreign aid” budget, which ironically includes subsidies to educational systems in China and India.

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UK Government ConDem Regime Prefers War over Education

ConDem Regime Prefers War over Education

The British National Party Newsroom

The ConDem regime has put aside more money for the Afghanistan war than for university education for British kids, and the new increase in tuition fees means that our youth face the highest cost of education in the world.

According to an analysis of the cost of the Afghanistan war published last year, the direct military cost of that conflict was in excess of £12 billion.

In the spending review cuts announced by Chancellor George Osborne, the higher education budget was cut from £7.1 billion to £4.2 billion.

The practical effect of this cut has now come home to roost. Universities have been granted the right to unilaterally increase tuition fees up to £9,000 per year. Fees are currently £3,290 a year.

This means that 75 percent of students will see the cost of a university education rocket. The hardest hit will be the middle classes, who will pay up to six times more for a degree than before.

The increase in fees means that British kids will now be saddled with a personal liability which is the highest individual education debt in the world.

Furthermore, the total bill, plus interest, will dog young people for most of their working lives, with many paying off the fees well into their 50s, an analysis has shown.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), universities would be free to charge less than £6,000 a year, but are extremely unlikely to do so as on average, they would need to charge £7,000 a year just to replace the lost income from teaching grants.

“Overall, the total amount of upfront support is more generous than the Browne recommendations for student with household incomes below £37,500, and less generous for students with household incomes above this,” the IFS report said.

In addition, changes to the way in which loan repayments are calculated will “significantly increase the administrative burden of applying for and administering loans,” the IFS continued.

“In particular, it is hard to justify why students from households with incomes of £42,600 should face larger debts than all other students doing similar priced courses,” that body concluded.

In real terms, the ConDem budget cuts will mean that undergraduates will be saddled with debts of up to £43,500 each, which will rise far higher with interest charges over the years.

For example, a graduate with a debt of £30,000 who goes on to earn in excess of £45,000 will have to pay back more than £2,000 every year for 30 years, while a sliding scale based on income will apply to graduates earning less.

This means that most will be repaying debt well into their well into their 50s.

Meanwhile, other figures show the £12 billion spent on the war in Afghanistan does not include the nearly £1 billion spent in foreign aid given to Afghanistan to “rebuild” that nation after it was destroyed by the Labour-Tory warmongers in the first place.

Other hidden costs of the war include support for injured troops, veterans and the families of soldiers killed in action. Figures from the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) show an increase in claims from £1.27 million in 2001 to £30.2 million in 2008.

The awards come with further "guaranteed income payments" which will cost a further £100 million.

British Children Being Displaced from Schools by Immigrants

British Kids Being Displaced from Schools in Peterborough

BNP News

British children are being displaced from schools in Peterborough by a tidal wave of immigration which has hit that city, new reports have indicated.

Peterborough — already famous for having more than 15 destitute immigrant squatter camps on roundabouts and other public places — no faces a school crisis as well after the town has borne the brunt of more than 20,000 immigrants over the last two years.

The registrar general's population estimates for mid 2007 for Peterborough was some 163,300. This means that the population has leaped by more than 12 percent in two years, and now stands at around 185,000.

According to reports, emergency classrooms have had to be put up to cope with the demand for primary school places which has resulted, and indigenous children have largely lost their first-choice places by the tidal wave of newcomers.

A council statement issued this past week said that 252 children or 11 per cent of applicants had missed out on their first choice of primary school.

A further 101, or five per cent, were turned away from all of their choices and were instead offered “directed” places in schools that had spaces left.

Isabel Clark, head of school place planning, was quoted as saying that a “steep increase in demand” had caused pressures.

Apparently every class in every year group is already full and the council has “struggled” to place all 2,438 pupils due to start classes in September.

Official figures have shown that “immigrant communities” have accounted for 64 percent of Peterborough's population growth.

One local school, Fulbridge School, boasts no less than 27 languages amongst its 675 pupils, which means that eastern European languages alone have not accounted for the immigration upsurge.

In that school, just 200 children have English as a first language.

* A separate report from Manchester City Council revealed that at least 30 percent of pupils in that city speak English as a second language, while in at least three boroughs,  Longsight, Cheetham and Rusholme where the number of non-English speakers rises top 70 percent.

In Newham, east London, English is a minority language in nine out of 10 schools, a situation replicated in 30 percent of all schools in Leicester and Blackburn, and 25 percent in Birmingham.

£13 Billion for Afghanistan War but cuts to UK University Budgets

£13 Billion for Afghanistan War, but UK University Budgets to be Cut by 35%

BNP News

The ConDem regime and its previous Labour clone will have spent more than £13 billion fighting their illegal war in Afghanistan by the end of the year, while, at home, the university education budget will be cut by 35 percent.

The education cuts will see fewer places for British children at universities, a cutback on building new facilities, stagnant infrastructure and more crowded classes.

The war in Afghanistan will, however, still receive top priority, along with increased foreign aid to that nation.

According to an analysis of the cost of the Afghanistan war published last year, the direct military cost of that conflict was in excess of £12 billion.

This money, spent at home, would have paid for 23 new hospitals, 60,000 new teachers or 77,000 new nurses.

Th2 £12 billion figure does not include the nearly £1 billion spent in foreign aid given to Afghanistan to “rebuild” that nation after it was destroyed by the Labour-Tory warmongers in the first place.

In 2009, direct military expenditure on the war had reached £3.49 billion, and this figure is expected to be increased this year. If this is the case, the total cost of the conflict will be well above the £13 billion figure.

Other hidden costs of the war include support for injured troops, veterans and the families of soldiers killed in action. Figures from the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) show an increase in claims from £1.27 million in 2001 to £30.2 million in 2008.

The awards come with further "guaranteed income payments" which will cost a further £100 million.

The original plan of the Department for International Development (DfID) was to spend £969 million in foreign aid to Afghanistan but this figure was recently increased by 40 percent by the Tory minister in charge of that department, Andrew Mitchell.

Meanwhile, at home, the cost of obtaining a university education is set to increase by over a third. The ConDem regime has told education authorities to prepare for budget cuts of 35 percent which means that the cash per student subsidy will be cut from £5,441 a year to £3,537.

According to a report, university authorities have said they will be “forced to scrap courses, crowd more students into lecture theatres and neglect facilities such as libraries and computer suites.”