“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” — George Orwell, “1984”
And who controls the minds of the children controls it all. Fox News was always pernicious in and of itself, but it spawned a number of spin offs that are truly out of control, OAN being the worst of all. When Roger Ailes started his network he had enough savvy to stick to hard news coverage — and arguably there is still some of that still over at Fox — and subtly dribble in the right-wing dogma, like a skilled chef will infuse a dish with a certain spice that eventually dominates the creation and turns it into something else altogether. Ailes was a master propagandist and he created an alternative media, infotainment, powerhouse of lies, disguised as a news set.
Fox News’ success broke the ground for the existence of Newsmax and OAN. OAN has been in business since 2013 but only grew to its present stature the end of 2020, when Donald Trump was divorcing Fox News and driving traffic over to OAN via his Twitter feed. But long before that happened, Mike Huckabee was on the OAN scene, doing a master class in scamming.
This is one for the books. Huckabee founded “Learn Our History” in 2011 and if you’ll just listen to Uncle Mike, he’ll give you everything you need to home school the kids, so that they don’t have to be exposed to those commie, pinko liberal history lessons in the classroom. Politico has a piece up where a reporter describes her 11 straight hours of watching OAN and the alternative reality therein. The day starts out with the Four Hour Biden Hate then moves on to Hate Plus Voting Machines in the afternoon (no wonder Smartmatic and Dominion are forced to sue) and then onto Prime Time Trump or the Trump Worship Hours, as I call it, where shows like “Real America” and “Trump: Legacy Of A Patriot” dictate the evening fare. And the commercial breaks encourage viewers to purchase a set of illustrated picture books for their children—The Kids’ Guide to Donald Trump, Celebrate Our Liberty, and a link for a free video lesson called “Great Again.”
On an iPad, the app showed a picture of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington administering the Oath of Office to Trump. “To learn more and order the Kids’ Guide to President Trump gift bundle, just go to FreeTrumpGuide.com,” said the cheerful narrator, directing me straight to a website featuring its author — Mike Huckabee, of all people — and reviews from parents like “Sandy D.” from Orlando, Fla.:
“I ordered this for my daughter who’s in the fifth grade. She studied the Trump presidency in school, but her lessons were biased like the media. The Kids Guides and video lessons are great!”
Now that is the set up for Huckabee’s pitch. You definitely don’t want your 9-year-old learning civics or history, or Gawd forbid, science, in school from professional educators, you want to buy Uncle Mike’s lesson plans and give the kids the real thing right there on the coffee table, because the schools are in cahoots with the Jewish media and Hollywood and they’re all in league with the Democrats — and Satan, don’t forget him. Huffington Post:
“The mainstream media doesn’t want your children to know the truth about President Trump and his achievements in office,” declared the recent ads for “The Kids Guide,” a new offshoot of Learn Our History that has also ramped up its Facebook spending to push the promotion. “That’s why Mike Huckabee’s team created ‘The Kids Guide to President Trump,’ and that’s why we’re making it free.”
But the offer is far from free. Parents across the country described a bait-and-switch scheme that they said duped them into signing up for $20-per-month subscriptions without their knowledge. Many said that Learn Our History ignored their repeated requests to cancel the subscriptions, leaving them locked into payments for products that they never wanted in the first place — all so their children can learn Huckabee’s version of history, which critics described as “pretend,” “kiddie propaganda” and “full of Christian nationalist revisionism and right-wing political propaganda.”
This isn’t the first time that Huckabee has cashed in on apparent scams. The former Fox News host has spent much of his post-gubernatorial life shilling for grifters, including the sellers of a $74 biblical cancer cure and a diabetes “reversal” treatment containing a “secret ingredient”: cinnamon. (“Let me tell you that diabetes can be reversed. I should know because I did it — and today you can, too!” he said in a 2015 infomercial before railing against prescription drugs, Big Pharma and the “mainstream medical community.”)
Rather than targeting the medically desperate and vulnerable, Huckabee’s history for kids company, an EverBright Media brand, has been pandering to parents with children who are “stuck at home” and bored during the coronavirus pandemic. And with its recent Facebook ad splurge, Learn Our History has succeeded in drawing in new customers — along with a wave of complaints from those who said they were shocked to discover additional charges on their credit card bills.
“I have tried numerous times to cancel a ‘subscription’ to this, … but no one responds to my emails or messages. I was not aware I had subscribed to anything, and I keep getting billed $20.90 a month for something I do not use or want. Buyer beware,” one woman posted to the ‘Kids Guide’ Facebook page. “Do not debit any more from my account,” another pleaded. “I sent a message, but no one responded.”
This is another one of those situations where you have to read the fine print, just like Team Trump asking for contributions to pay “legal fees” to fight the “stolen election.” You are in fact signing up for all kinds of charges to your credit card, and it goes to line Mike Huckabee’s pockets. Despicable doesn’t even begin to describe these people and how they use and manipulate others for profit. And that is the essence of Trumpism, profit and greed, not political dogma.
There is a greater tragedy here as well. A lot of kids who are stuck at home are losing precious time acquiring reading and math skills, as well as learning about government, civics, history, and many other things, and this is a cultural mine field in and of itself. Axios:
On average, American students from kindergarten to fifth grade have missed out on 20% of the reading and 33% of the math skills they would have learned in normal times, according to a McKinsey report that analyzed diagnostic test scores across the country.
- And the learning loss isn’t equal, says Jimmy Sarakatsannis, one of the authors of McKinsey’s report. When looking just at students of color, those numbers go up to 23% and 41% for reading and math, respectively.
- That’s because students of color are more likely to be in resource-strapped school districts with poor remote learning infrastructure. They’re also far more likely to lack steady access to devices or the internet.
- The number of high school dropouts is also projected to spike as a result of the pandemic, he notes.
This is the tragic shape of things to come in the near future, but Trump and his cronies, and the Trump Republicans are only concerned about making money off of human misery and staying in power.
His souless, self righteous, hypocritical, chronic lying rube named sarah learned her craft from daddy.
If she gets elected governor of Arkansas, it will truly be a step backwards. My God, what has happened to that state since Bill Clinton had that job?
Not feeling any sympathy for anyone who watches OAN and then wants to watch videos full of make believe bull. Maybe now they’ll understand what a grifter Frump is and has always been. Anything with his name attached is sure to drain your coffers.
Don’t forget the fact that Hucksterbee is an ordained preacher. Which again tells me there is no god. If there were, certain people with this asshole certainly being one of them would find themselves in the middle of a dystopian landscape filled with sulfur and lava pits, with a live video feed streaming out to the magic tee vee box of every sucker they’ve conned into believing their bullshit. And Satan himself would appear, conjur up a metal pole and with waves of his arms start lashing ole Mike to it with electrified barbed wire. And after Mike had spent a few hours pleading for mercy and imploring god to save him and apologize for all of his sins and lies about Jesus’ teachings and worship of the fake gold idol Trump god would show up!
And look him straight in the eye and say too late. I gave you decades of time to repent and you refused. You belong to THIS guy (and gestures to Satan) now. But he and I go back a ways and he’s granted me a request where you’re concerned. Mike would then start sobbing his thanks and god would cut loose in peals of laughter and then say “You actually think I’m going to save you? My favor from Satan is that I get to be the one to toss you into the lava pit in which you’ll suffer for all eternity you worthless piece of shit!”
Again and again something along those lines should have happened to so many “christian” conservatives. It hasn’t, so I hope my friends of faith will cut me some slack for being skeptical of god, heaven and hell.
Well, according to Jesus himself, it will not be quite so dramatic. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!’ ” Matt 7:22-23
It’s great if you don’t mind your kids never getting past HS. (I read a series of Twitter posts about what home-schools kids get fed in some of the religion-based curricula – they’re anti-democracy.)
That is just another stereotype. In the 1990s and early turn of the century, universities were concerned that home-schooled students would not be able to succeed in college. Homeschoolers have objectively demonstrated that they have a great record of success, Universities have been welcoming them since around 2005 or so.
They’re being taught lies. That’s going to come back and bite them when they go to college, unless they go to a matching religious school.
Have you see the results of suits filed because they couldn’t get through science classes?
They go to regular state universities and do well. That is why universities have come to welcome them. I agree that some are being taught lies, but there are lots of different kinds of homeschoolers whose parents have a variety of motives, and in fact, the vast majority of religious parents send their kids to a regular public school. Homeschoolers are only about 5% of school-age children.
Please do not be like right-wing commenters who ask a question but provide no link. It is a bad faith way of planting a disinformation seed right up there with Trump “only asking” about bleach, because there is an implied assertion in the question. Furthermore, it must be said over and over that it’s important not to generalize about the entire homeschooling movement based on court cases. By definition situations that make it into court are atypical.
Stereotypes always concern me including stereotypes of homeschooled children. The advertising Politico refers to is here. https://trumpbundle.thekidsguide.com/ The “review” is from the advertising and should be taken with the same grain of salt applied to all advertising testimonials. Politico smacks of propaganda when it quotes the “review” as if it were a real review and not an advertisement, and as if it represents the entire set of (actually nonexistent) reviews.
Here are a couple of actual reviews:
“I am a mom of 4 and a Democrat. I have already got 3 DVDs in this series and my kids love it. My kids range from 6 to 12. They learn history in a fun way. It is not too long so that is also good. It is a good way to use modern technology to educate our kids. It does not profess any particular doctrine.” https://www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com/review-learn-our-history/
1.0 out of 5 stars
Reason Why People Make Fun of Home Schoolers
Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2013
In looking for a Godly, History program, we discovered this series. We signed up for the initial DVD, not realizing it was a continual DVD subscription. We received 2 DVDs before we cancelled. Sadly, these DVD’s give education a very bad name! Our family sat down to watch them and even our 4 yr old asked if we, “have to finish this bad movie?”
The graphics are just flat out embarrassing for todays standards. The “History” lessons are so lost in the drama of the ridiculous “cast of characters”, that it totally detracts from the lessons in history. They actually reinforce why this country is in the state it is in, because of the tripe and drama portrayed. One of the DVDs we watched was on Christopher Columbus. One of our son’s birthday is on October 12th. We figured he’d at least get the date out of the program. Nope! At age 8, he was so overwhelmed at the “horrible History lesson”, that he couldn’t even tell us the date that Columbus discovered America. This series does such a disservice on so many levels. First to say that our kids are inundated with so many highly graphic media forms today, and that this is so very dot matrix. Any History to be learned is lost in such poor quality graphics as well as story lines. I need to add that we did not purchase these from Amazon, and a disclaimer should be made voiding Amazon from any consequences causing nightmares you or your children will have from watching these. On a positive note, we had a fantastic hour of pant-wetting laughter at just making fun of these. If you have money to waste, and need a lesson on what not to produce for education, please spend away! https://www.amazon.com/Mike-Huckabee-Learn-History-Election-Day-Choosing-President/product-reviews/B007AFC09M/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_paging_btm_next_2?reviewerType=all_reviews&pageNumber=2
If you look at the links, the accuracy of the information is not usually addressed at all. Most reviewers object to what they consider a credit card scam and the poor production quality.
You can check out some of the videos yourself here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9mH4EgfWx0
From what I’ve seen the acronym shouldn’t be OAN, but ONAN, like in the word onanism.
Shades of Nazi youth, all over again.