"We Don't Need No Thought Control" EP 119 Show Opener By Cheryl Todd

I am not nearly cool enough to do that famous lyric justice, & if I was cooler, it would sound as ominous as when the rock group Pink Floyd growled it as a warning not to giving up our psyches to whatever is popular. I am wondering, what happened to our rock stars, our rebels, & the voice of those who would encourage us to be distinct & unique individuals? When I was growing up the people who pushed the boundaries on convention were the musicians. They were the non-conformists, the rebels, the ones who dared us to be independent-minded & free from mindlessly walking in lockstep with what others told us to do. The lyrics are from the song The Wall. I may be taking a bit of license in how I interpret the lyrics, but poetry & art are like beauty & those things impact each of us differently. When I hear the words "We Don't Need No Thought Control" I hear a rebuke to those who would attempt to dumb us down into submission. The singer literally screams at one point in protection of young minds against indoctrination, saying "Hey Teachers, leave the kids alone". *Again, I know that is the most un-cool reciting of that song you will ever hear, *but bear with me. For many years I didn't understand the implications of this song, but nowadays, all one needs to do is look at what it happening on our campuses & the politically charged nature of the instructors themselves to see why someone would write these kinds of lyrics. All of the recent High School Anti-Gun Walkouts are a perfect example of our (tax-payer funded) public schools taking a political & indoctrinating position with no counter-voice in sight. We paid for that, all of those man-hours, all of that time kids spent outside of the classroom, you & I paid for someone to fill our kids' young minds with a polarized view of a politically charged issue. Had they offered an equally impactful experience with the other side of the issue, I would have respected that. Had they prepared the students with a rich lesson plan about the Constitution & all the reasons why we have these documents, which were to act as a firewall against people who would trample our Human & Civil Rights, then perhaps it would have been a lively & thought-provoking moment. Charge the students up with emotion, feed them one side of an issue, give them no reference point for why we have our rights, & tell them to demand that we have too many rights, & can't be trusted with those rights, & we need Daddy Government to take those rights back. That is manipulation & propaganda. That is thought control. At the college level it may be even worse. A friend of mine, Antonia Okafor the founder of EmPOWERed, has been fighting for Conservative Voices & Campus Carry to help college students not be disarmed just because they cross an imaginary line from the street onto the supposed "Gun Free Zones" of campus. The Constitution suddenly doesn't exist on the grounds of the institution of higher learning. Now, to those who want to think of college students as "kids" "“ I have two things to say to you. One is that because of the "wisdom" of a loud group of High School kids, we seem to be ready to rip up our Constitution & second, the average age of people on College Campuses is far beyond the legal age to own & possess firearms. I didn't start college until I was 25 years old, & a recent US News article stated that most college students are 25 & older. Charlie Kirk, of Turning Point USA, is another person who is doing what he can to try to help free people from thought control. He is starting chapters at colleges all over the country to offer students opportunities to have a more balanced view of the freedoms that America was founded on. So, while I just mentioned that college students are in their twenties, & we might think that these people are old enough to make up their own minds about Constitutional Issues, many of them were never even exposed to such topics & to World History in their younger years. They have been steeped for their entire educational "career" in one ideology, which leans toward hating America, having no concept of historical events, & hearing ad-nauseum that "guns are bad". If it weren't for people like Antonia & Charlie, who are touching thousands of lives through their non-profit organizations, thought control would have few challengers. Silence in the face of thought control, manipulation & propaganda is not only complacent, it is complicit. So, to answer my own question "“ where are the rock stars? They are those who are helping push back the line of tyranny & ignorance, they are people like Antonia & Charlie. The rock stars are people like you who instill in your children the lessons of history "“ the messy, uncomfortable, & painful lessons, so that they will not have to repeat those lessons in their lifetime. So, keep prying the chains off of your own thinking, as we fight every day to remind ourselves & our future generations that We Don't Need No Thought Control.
- Cheryl Todd