The indoctrination of the young is not limited to K-12 schools with Federal standards, nor to institutions of higher “education.” Now toddlers can be indoctrinated using a radical ABC board book entitles “A is for Activist.”
The author is very clear about what this book is for:
“A is for Activist is an ABC board book that I’ve written and illustrated for the next generation of progressives: Families that want their kids to grow up in a space that is unapologetic about activism, environmental justice, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, and so on.”
How successful is it? It’s gotten 3 year olds chanting “union power,” and been praised as a tool for “grooming your future activist. How bad is it? Below are two examples from the book that clearly illustrate the radical nature of this “children’s book”:
Selection from "A is for Activist" for purposes of critique & comment
Another selection from "A is for Activist" for purposes of critique & comment
Perhaps the most notable feature, is the inclusion of a black cat “hidden” in all the pages. The black cat is an Anarcho-Syndicalist symbol popularized by the Industrial Workers of the World (AKA the “Wobblies“), who are a radical trade union that is not above a little violence.
Anarcho-Syndicalism stands for “revolutionary industrial unionism or syndicalism as an appropriate vehicle for subjugated classes in capitalist society to regain control over the course of their own destiny. Syndicalism is viewed both as a strategy for facilitating worker self-activity and as being an alternative co-operative economic system upon which to base a democratic regime of production for the satisfaction of human need once the injustices understood to be inherent to capitalist society have been overcome.” Their principles can be summed up thus:
” The principles of anarcho-syndicalism are workers’ solidarity, direct action, and workers’ self-management. Workers’ solidarity means that anarcho-syndicalists believe all workers, no matter what their gender or ethnic group, are in a similar situation in regard to their bosses (class consciousness). Furthermore, it means that, in a capitalist system, any gains or losses made by some workers from or to bosses will eventually affect all workers. Therefore, to liberate themselves, all workers must support one another in their class conflict.
“Anarcho-syndicalists believe that only direct action — that is, action carried out by the workers themselves, which is concentrated on attaining a goal directly, as opposed to indirect action, such as electing a representative to a government position — will allow workers to liberate themselves.”
The Wobblies’ own Preamble to their constitution reflects this:
“The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.
“Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.”
The explicitness about their ideology can be seen by the prominent combination of the “black cat” (AKA “sabot-cat”) with the black/red Anarcho-Syndicalist flag:
IWW "Sabot-cat" symbol combined with Anarcho-Syndicalist flag
One of the pages of the “A is for Activists” book includes a candlelight vigil with various figures. Mixed in with such laudable figures as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., are such figures as Anarchist Dorthy Day, Socialist Party of America chairman Bayard Rustin, Peace & Freedom Party candidate Mario Savio, and Earth First! founder Judi Bari.
Anarchists, Socialist, and Greens! Oh my!
Such normalization of radical figures is just one of the more prominent examples of the indoctrination of children.
