WaPo's 'Kids Post' Offers Immigration Indoctrination for Children

Photo of Kristen Fyfe.
By Kristen Fyfe | June 28, 2007 - 15:37 ET

The KidsPost section of The Washington Post on June 28 features a lesson on how to manipulate the minds of children with liberal talking points on big issues.  In an article entitled “Rallying in Support of Illegal Immigrants, Kids Say Families Could Be Separated” the issue of illegal immigrants was put into the scary context of kids being separated from their parents. 

In the 11-paragraph story, filled with pictures of smiling girls, red, white and blue balloons and the American flag, there was not one mention of the fact that illegal immigrants in this country have broken the law.  Rather the children who read the KidsPost were told that these people are “in the country without having permission from the U.S. government.”

Yeah, you read that right.  Breaking the law is the equivalent of doing something "without permission."  What normal, average kid is going to think that's a bad thing?  Kinda' like sneaking a cookie out of the cookie jar when mom's not looking.

It is obvious that author Luz Lazo's purpose in this piece is to influence young minds. Every child quoted in the piece was supportive of the idea that illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay in the United States.  One child, a U.S. citizen, was “afraid” her illegal immigrant parents will be deported.  Another, who is an illegal immigrant, said she will be “sad” if she has to go back to live in Mexico and that she would “feel like a stranger there.” The story said she spoke in Spanish.

Even the friends chimed in. Two other children who are citizens support the scared kids.  One said the “government should help these people.”  The other said children shouldn’t have to pay for their parents mistakes, “It’s not their fault that their parents are not legal.”  That 12-year old went on to say that, "People come to the United States to have better lives."

It isn't until a reader gets to the accompanying sidebar on the immigration legislation (just blocked by the Senate), that the words "broke the law" ever show up.  But these come only after the reader has read "illegal immigrants are people from other countries who are in the United States without the permission of the U.S. government." 

The bias in this piece borders on being insidious, especially because it is aimed squarely at children who clearly don't have a finely tuned "bias radar."  First it paints the immigration issue solely in terms related to a kid's greatest fear, being separated from their parents.  Second by only featuring sympathetic children, it plays to a child's natural instinct to align with peers and defend the underdog.   

The concept of the KidsPost – getting kids interested in reading newspapers – is one I actually like. My own 12-year old asks to read the KidsPost every morning over breakfast.  And then I spend the next several minutes de-programming the information she's consumed.  

And that, in a nutshell, points to the subtle, sometimes transparent, efforts of the liberal media: hook 'em early and feed 'em one point of view.

 

Comments Policy

All comments are owned by whoever posted them and are subject to our terms of use. They should not be assumed to represent the views of NewsBusters.

Viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Sorry, WaPo.  Most kids who

Sorry, WaPo.  Most kids who do read are catching up on Harry Potter during the summer.

Kristen, thats the Public School System in a Nutshell.

This is EXACTLY what the Libs do in the Public School System.

They use it program children away from their Conservative Parents.

Kids go to school and get a one-sided approach to Homsexuality, Environment, Politics, etc.

My wife is a publoic school teacher and got in trouble because she said she respected our President. They said she should get poltical in class. And yet some other classes engage in Bush bashing and it's OK!!

She was laid off a couple times because she refuses to hide the fact that she is a Conservative Chrsitian.

The schools don't allow any discussions of Jesus or The Bible, so that they can teach kids it's OK to have sex and get abortions. They can't control themselves.

I am not so looking forward to knowing that I and my wife will have to de-program my kids almost every day after coming home from school soon.

Sorry to hear public school i

Sorry to hear public school is the future for your kids.  There are good alternatives and I will pray for you and your family that one of these could work out for you.  Feel free to contact me through my inbox here if you would like more information.

Personally after hearing the plight of public schools almost 15 years ago, we made a decision not to ever let our kids (six of them) go to public school.  It has not been easy but the Good Lord has helped us through the process and  never-ending comments of "socialization, qualifications, and "kids will be weird"".

v

exLib,A bit long (but since t

exLib,

A bit long (but since there are so few posts to this thread I'll set it here), and the first 14 have somewhat morphed into other avenues for the "progressives" (code for Socialist/Communists) due to the fall of the USSR, but you will note the rest are chillingly "progressing" in this country:

From "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic

          war.

          2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic

          war.

          3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States

          would be a demonstration of moral strength.

          4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist

          affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for

          war.

          5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

          6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist

          domination.

          7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

          8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of

          Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free

          elections under supervision of the U.N.

          9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United

          States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in

          progress.

          10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

          11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is

          rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its

          own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the

          world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes

          these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the

          Congo.)

          12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

          13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

          14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

          15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

 

          16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American

          institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

          17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for

          socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get

          control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

          18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

          19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or

          organizations which are under Communist attack.

          20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments,

          editorial writing, policy-making positions.

          21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

          22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of

          artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate

          all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless,

          awkward and meaningless forms."

          23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to

          promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

          24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them

          "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

          25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography

          and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

          26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal,

          natural, healthy."

          27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with

          "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for

          intellectual maturity, which does not need a "religious crutch."

          28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the

          schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of

          church and state."

          29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate,

          old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to

          cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

          30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish

          aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

          31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching

          of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the

          "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the

          Communists took over.

          32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over

          any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs,

          mental health clinics, etc.

          33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the

          operation of the Communist apparatus.

          34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

          35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

          36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

          37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

          38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social

          agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which

          no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].

          39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as

          a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist

          goals.

          40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and

          easy divorce.

          41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative

          influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and

          retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

          42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are

          legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and

          special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to

          solve economic, political or social problems.

          43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are

          ready for self-government.

          44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

          45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.

Twelve-year-old Monica Cama

Twelve-year-old Monica Camacho agrees. She has lived in Baltimore since she was 7 and is not here legally. She said she would be very sad if she had to go back to Mexico.

"I'd feel like a stranger there," she said in Spanish. "It will be hard to get used to living there again."

She spent five years here and can't speak English? So much for assimilation.

Nothing like using the kids w

Nothing like using the kids when convenient in the msm of all venues...the leftists have done this since I can remember politically...now they resort to this too...

Won't work...

Btw...they had some young gal call in this morning on the Washington Journal I think right before or after Jeff Sessions was on the show... crying about her outcome if this Bill does not pass....blah blah blah...

Cry me a river....tug at the heart strings.

Like that wasn't a set-up either...these people stop at nothing if possible...the left have no shame....zilch.

she NEEDS to go home

Really...she needs to go home to Mexico for her own good. Obviously our schools are failing her. If she cannot speak English after 5 years, what kind of education could she possibly be receiving. I think it is in her BEST interest to go to Mexico.

If conservatives are RIGHT, then liberals must be WRONG.
Thompson/Rice

Think her teachers can even s

Think her teachers can even spell English?

SI`

Hablo ingles solamente si es necesario.