'Smash left wing scum!'

by: matt

Wed Jul 19, 2006 at 02:40:25 AM EDT

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently”

-Friedrich Nietzsche: The Dawn: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality, Book 4, #297, 1881

The Campus Leadership Program, a division of the Leadership Institute, fosters permanent, effective, conservative student organizations on college campuses across America.

-snip-

Local conservative campus groups provide experience in leadership and positive character development for each young conservative who participates. The creation and maintenance of the campus group develops the principles of individual responsibility, private initiative and organizational entrepreneurship in the students.

• Host speakers and events on campus
• Start a conservative newspaper
• Win student government elections
• Fight the political correctness and the campus left!

The Leadership Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization located in Arlington, Virginia that teaches "political technology." [1] The Institute's mission is to "identify, train, recruit and place conservatives in politics, government, and media" through a variety of programs offered at the Institute's Arlington headquarters or at its many training seminars held around the United States, mostly on college campuses. As of January 2006, the Leadership Institute had trained more than 47,000 students.

"How do I know you are genuine?" shouted the teacher, Mark Montini, at the Leadership Institute.

Without hesitation, Doug Tietz, a University of Michigan junior with a freshly pressed white shirt, a short haircut and a burning desire to be a campaign strategist, shouted back, "Because I appear genuine."

Exactly so.

"The words you say are important, but they are much less important than the visuals and the vocals," Mr. Montini told Mr. Tietz and seven other eager Republicans in their early 20's. He advised them to elongate words to show compassion and bite them off to show anger. He said 93 percent of the impression that any politician made on an audience came from how he looked and how he sounded — not what he said. (emphasis added)

LI's list of "graduates" is certainly impressive (again, see Wikipedia): Grover "drown government in a bathtub" Norquist, ex-Christian Coalition head and rent-a-fundie lobbyist Ralph Reed, Sen. Mitch McConell (R-KY), Jack Abramoff (no introduction necessary), and a male prostitute/fake White House correspondent by the made-up name "Jeff Gannon" of the so-called "Talon News Service". Remember him?

So who pays for all of this? Coors' beer money is a big chunk of it. But take a look at this list of donors compiled from IRS form 990's by MediaTransparency.org. Any names look familiar? Yes...you see it, don't you. I'm speaking, of course, of Amway pyramid scheme founder and "Compassionate Capitalism" author Rich DeVos! That's right - the sign those "ring girls" are holding up and that appears in five different pictures on the "SMASH LEFTWING SCUM" "fight night" website is paid for in part by DeVos/Amway money.

If I sound a little paranoid tonight, it's because I am. My discovery of the SMASH LEFTWING SCUM website came only a day after reading in the Kalamazoo Gazette about another right-wing indoctrination outfit on the prowl in Lansing, the "Student Statesmanship Institute." Unlike the Leadership Institute and its' subsidiary, the Campus Leadership Project, the SSI gets them even younger. From the SSI website:

From small beginnings with 14 students, SSI has grown to include: three separate week-long summer camps, serving more than 300 students each year; a traveling, two-day, on-site program for Christian, public and home-school students; and an exciting, discipleship program for SSI alumni called the Ambassador League.

 

In 2004, more than 800 young people, aged 14 to 19 years from a variety of denominations and backgrounds, were touched by the ministry of SSI. 

 

The result? Today, SSI is Michigan’s Premier Biblical Worldview & Leadership Training Program for high school students.

SSI represents a whole new way of thinking. Young people come to understand that God has a destiny and purpose for their lives. They start to realize that faith is not a 'crutch' for weak people, but rather it has relevance to every area of life. They begin to see themselves as Christ's Ambassadors, who have been commissioned to influence the world for His Kingdom. They learn to give themselves as servant leaders in a bankrupt culture. They are equipped to counter the narrow-secular worldview that is so pervasive in our society.

How are kids "equipped to counter the narrow-secular worldview"? The Kalamazoo Gazette explains:

Sitting in a legislative committee meeting, taking part in a mock press conference and listening to political experts give presentations have helped build a better foundation from which she can speak about her Christian beliefs, Lindsey (Follman - a 14-year old home-schooled girl from Texas Township) said.

``They are teaching us how we can argue for our faith,'' she said after the mock press conference that addressed the issue of putting filters on computers in public libraries to block out offensive material.

``You can't defend your faith by opinions. No one will trust you'' if opinions, and not facts, are all a person has to offer, she said.

After the mock press conference, Lindsey went off to attend a simulated committee hearing on legislation regulating cell-phone use by teenage drivers. In another room, former Kalamazoo-area legislator Dale Shugars chaired a mock committee hearing at which young people discussed the issue of partial-birth abortion.

The Student Statesmanship Institute - according to a diclaimer on the bottom of their home page - is a "ministry of the Foundation for Traditional Values."  Seeing as I already had the always-useful Media Transparency database open to find out the dirt on the Leadership Institute, I figured I'd try plugging in  "Foundation for Traditional Values" and see what happens. Mirror, mirror on the wall...

Well, I'll be!!! Look whose name is one the list! Once again, it's noneother than our favorite Amway pyramid scheme founder, RICH DEVOS!!!

Yes sir, whether it's a good old fashioned teenage conversation about sexual abstinence or so-called "partial-birth abortion", or a bloody basement "SMASH LIBERAL SCUM" brawl, DeVos/Amway money is raising the next generation of Grover Norquists, Ralph Reeds, and "Jeff Gannons" right here in Lansing!

Not that you'd ever find any of this out in the Kalamazoo Gazette, which covered the SSI junket to Lansing as just another warm and fuzzy "aw, look at the cute kiddies" kind of story. The KG should be ashamed of this. But they're not alone. In 2004, the Lansing State Journal did the same damn thing. The Amway moneyman is indoctrinating teenagers to be footsoldiers in their grand theocratic onslaught and it's supposed to be cute.

I'd like to think my ranting about all of this will prompt other scribes to take a more careful look at some of the Amway Family-funded brainwashing activities. Unfortunately, I do not hold high hopes for this. There are far too many stories to write about this week's poll or Amway Guy's last television ad. Besides, none of this appears on a press release or fits in a 10-second soundbyte. Therefore, it does not exist.

Throughout the course of human history, the movie we are now watching has been played out many, many times. Seldom does it have a happy ending. Will you be an actor or an impotent bystander as the "smashing of left-wing scum" commences? The choice is yours.