The Red Guards of Mizzou

During the months of May and June 1966, the Communist Central Committee of the Peoples Republic of China formed cadres of radical students called the Red Guards. In a document titled the “Sixteen Articles,” outlining the role that university students would be asked to play in the Cultural Revolution, the students were ordered to attack the “Four Olds” of Chinese society… i.e., old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas.

However, the attacks on Chinese culture soon devolved into attacks on the Chinese people. And although the “Sixteen Articles” stipulated that non-violent persuasion, rather than force, was to be used to achieve the goals of the Cultural Revolution, officials in positions of authority, as well as perceived bourgeois elements, suffered physical and psychological attacks. Many were ousted from teaching and administrative duties at colleges and universities and assigned menial tasks such as sweeping streets and cleaning public toiletsthe sort of tasks that senior party officials believed would allow them to contemplate their past mistakes.”

Now that University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe and Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin have been forced from office by a rag-tag mob of radical left faculty and liberal students, black and white, one wonders where they will be sent and what tasks the Red Guards of Mizzou will assign them. Will we find them muckingout stalls and shoveling manure in the Animal Husbandry barns at the College of Agriculture? If so, their public humiliation could not be any greater than they have already suffered by meekly yielding to radical student demands.

The most visible faculty member in the mob at Mizzou has been communications professor Melissa Click. When professor Click climbed out of bed on the morning of November 9, she could never have imagined that, by sundown, her blazing eyes and frizzy carrot-red hair would become the worldwide symbol of leftist intolerance, just as the skull and crossbones has become the international symbol for poisonous substances. As a Mizzou alumnus, having studied engineering just a stone’s throw from the highly regarded Missouri School of Journalism, just beyond the iconic columns, I am greatly embarrassed that my alma mater is now identified in the minds of many non-Missourians by the inconceivable image of a radical left journalism professor calling for “muscle” to help suppress freedom of the press in a campus uprising.

Along with the resignation of President Tim Wolfe and other demands too outlandish to mention, the radical students demanded that he write a letter of apology to the concerned students in which he acknowledged his “white male privilege.” They demanded an amendment to university hiring policies requiring that all future presidents and chancellors be selected by a “collective of students, staff, and faculty of diverse backgrounds.”

They demanded that the university create and enforce a “comprehensive racial awareness and inclusion curriculum,” mandatory for all students, faculty, staff, and administrators throughout all campus departments. The racial awareness curriculum would be “vetted, maintained, and overseen by a board comprised of students, staff, and faculty of color.” Although it was not included in their demands, one can only assume that, in time, the students engaged in the vetting, maintenance, and oversight of the racial awareness program would demand salaries equal to those of faculty and staff.

Given that most of those involved in the campus uprising are majoring in make-believe subjects such as Underwater Basket-Weaving or Playground Supervision, their daily study routines would not be impacted by such foolishness. However, what about those students studying Chemistry, Physics, Medicine, or Engineering? Would they be required to forego subject matter essential to their professional development in order to satisfy the racial demands of a small group of students whose motivation for being on campus is questionable, at best?

The students demanded that, by academic year 2017-18, the university increase the percentage of black faculty and staff to 10%. They also demanded that, prior to May 1, 2016, the university develop a strategic 10-year plan aimed at “increasing retention rates for marginalized students.” In other words, a mob of students with IQs smaller than their hat size, spouting political ideology taken straight out of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book, are insisting that a major institution of higher learning develop a 10-year plan to retain students who have neither the ambition, the self-discipline, nor the brain-power to merit their presence on a college or university campus.

The absurdity of the students’ demands was followed by an even greater absurdity. On the day following the resignations, the Mizzou campus police published a statement under the subject heading: Reporting Hateful and/or Hurtful Speech. The statement read: “To continue to ensure that the University of Missouri campus remains safe, the MU Police Department (MUPD) is asking individuals who witness incidents of hateful and/or hurtful speech or actions to:

Call the police immediately at 573-882-7201. (In an emergency situation, dial 911.)

Give the communication operator a summary of the incident, including location.

Provide a detailed description of the individual(s) involved.

Provide a license plate and vehicle descriptions (if appropriate).

If possible, and if it can be done safely, take a photo of the individual(s) with your cell phone.

The MUPD release raises some interesting questions: For example, will the MUPD hate-speech crackdown create a massive increase in demand for a long distance lip-reading curriculum? And would the act of eating a large slice of watermelon on a sidewalk in front of a black fraternity or sorority merit a 911 call, or would a call to 573-882-7201 be sufficient?

The entire affair has been very poorly handled by faculty and administrators. Instead of yielding to the rabble on the Mizzou campus, the Missouri Board of Curators should have refused to accept the resignations of the University’s top administrators. Instead, they should have fired all faculty members who participated in the uprising and sent every student who participated in the outrage back to their parents for recycling and attitude adjustment… and yes, that includes all thirty-two of the football players who threatened to go on strike. After all, their season is already ruined, and as poorly as theyve performed on the playing field, they can easily be replaced.

In February 1970, Soviet KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov decided that he could no longer live under the repressive policies of the Kremlin, the same repressive policies now so highly favored by American liberals and Democrats. Disguised in a beard and a wig, Bezmenov joined a tour group and eventually made his way to the U.S. and Canada.

In extensive interviews with U.S. intelligence, Bezmenov described the ideological subversion that had been ongoing in the U.S. for decades. He said, “What (ideological subversion) basically means is to change the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that, despite the abundance of information (available to them), no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country.

“It is a great brainwashing process which goes very slowly and is divided into four basic stages: The first (is) demoralization. It takes from 15-20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years required to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemyIn other words, Marxist-Leninist ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students without being challenged or counter-balanced by the basic values of Americanism

“The result you can see. Most of the people who graduated in the sixties… are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, the educational system. You are stuck with them. You cannot get rid of them. They are contaminated; they are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern. You cannot change their minds even if you expose them to authentic information. Even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still cannot change the basic perception and the logic of behavior.

He concluded by saying, “In other words, (in) these people, the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. To rid society of these people you need another fifteen or twenty years to educate a new generation of patriotically-minded and common sense people who would be acting in favor and in the interests of U.S. society.”

Yes, we are a “demoralized” nation. The ideological subversion that Bezmenov described has descended like a fog over colleges and universities across the country. With rare exceptions, such as Liberty University, Hillsdale College, and Grove City College, all of which are dedicated to teaching constitutional principles as the Framers intended, the colleges and universities of America are cesspools of ideological intolerance. They are populated by the sort of “useful idiots” who led and participated in the effort to remove the top administrators of the University of Missouri, and to stifle free speech and freedom of the press in the process. Like it or not, the Red Guards have arrived at nearly every college and university campus in America. Worse yet, they are our children and grandchildren, the products of our public education system. They are the future leaders of America; they are also neo-fascists.

Since it is impossible to hold a conversation of any depth with such undeveloped minds, perhaps they can understand the simple advice of CNN’s Don Lemon, who said, “College students should not be coddled by retreating into so-called ‘safe spaces’ because they’re afraid of having their feelings hurt. If you’re afraid of having your feelings hurt, don’t leave your house…” Amen!

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of University of Missouri students is by Sarah Bell, AP.

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