Todd Starnes, Fox News commentator and radio host, whose dispatches from the culture war Newshounds has covered in the past, is busy promoting his new book, “Dispatches from Bitter America,” but he still found time to share the latest assault on freedom, God and the American way with FoxNews.com and the Fox Nation.
According to his fellow culture warriors, the book is notable for its “homespun humor” and its “healthy dose of satire.” Well, Starnes’ sense of the humorous and satirical evidently failed him when he saw this cartoon from a Des Moines high school’s social studies flyer which, according to the school, was part of a handout about Cold War era propaganda. Starnes took the portrayal of the pot-bellied, money-raking capitalist and the happy communist workers pretty seriously. It prompted Starnes to ask in a commentary, Did School Promote Communism over Capitalism?
According to Starnes, the cartoon was sent to a Fox News radio affiliate by concerned parent Jeff Travis.
“I’m a businessman,” said Travis. “I took great offense. I don’t smoke big stogies. I don’t have a big gut. My employees are not shackled. If this was a fair representation, where is the fence around the workers on the communist side? Where is the guy holding a gun to their heads saying either comply or die? Where are the bodies that Stalin and Mao put in the graves?”
Starnes called attention to some text from the flyer: “Communism stands for equal sharing of the work according to the benefits and the ability, but in capitalism an individual is responsible for his works … While the profit of any enterprise is equally shared by all in Communism, the profit in the capitalist structure belongs to the owner only.”
It isn’t until way down in Starnes’ commentary that you discover the handout was part of the school’s effort to look at “some of the arguments both sides made” during the Cold War. Apparently, Starnes took that kind of balance as an implication that there might have been positive things about Communism! How dare a school teach anything about Communism without making sure to depict it as godless, tyrannical and evil? You can’t circulate stuff like that in a free society!
“Unreal story, folks!” screamed Starnes on his Facebook page. “Pay attention to what your kids are being taught!”
If you’re as concerned as Starnes, gentle reader, you can buy his new book, about which Fox & Friends host Gretchen Carlson says: “Todd Starnes captures the sentiments many Americans feel as they helplessly watch the traditional values they grew up with being stomped out and over-ruled by political correctness.”
Then you can find out the answers to questions like:
- Did President Obama really try to remove the Nativity from the White House?
- Why did a school system banish cupcakes and brownies?
- Could your pizza delivery guy determine the kind of healthcare you receive?
I think I’ll pass, myself.
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