2024 has just begun, and America is faced with many problems. Senator Ted Cruz’s new book, “Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America,” summarizes these problems well. Sen. Cruz feels American society is now tainted and his book lays out how and why “wokeness” took over institutions. The senator also offers ideas for how to take some of these institutions back.
The book’s first story is not about the senator, but about his father Rafael, who at 17 was taken prisoner in Cuba for supporting Fidel Castro over Baptista. It has the most interesting prologue that I have ever read, with these words: “His white linen suit was stained red with blood.” This story follows Rafael’s journey from naiveté about cultural Marxism to his realization about how destructive this idea is.
Source of the Woke Virus
Sen. Cruz calls universities “The Wuhan lab of the woke virus.” He believes that woke ideas started, and then spread from institutions of higher learning.Indoctrinating the Young
Cruz says Marxism doesn’t work and that any serious reader can discover this. Because of this fact, Marxists begin the indoctrination process with children. A story that Cruz tells about the takeover of Cuba illustrates this point: Shortly after Castro conquered Cuba, he sent soldiers into the elementary schools. The soldiers instructed the kindergartners to close their eyes and pray to God for candy. The children did. When the children opened their eyes, there was no candy. Then, they told the children to close their eyes and pray to Fidel Castro for candy. The children did. This time when the children opened their eyes, each child had a piece of candy on his or her desk, quietly slipped there by the soldiers.
Mainstream Media Bias
Sen. Cruz declares there is a serious bias in today’s mainstream media. As a result, to protect his position on issues, the senator is always careful to specify this: If news networks were going to interview him on television, they must air the entirety of whatever he had to say with no editing.Sen. Cruz points out that in the past, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein did not use emotionally charged language to make their point, but painfully and deliberately brought together their findings. They followed the facts where they led, no matter how ugly, complicated, or against their personal philosophy those facts were.
How can the press be fought? Individual citizens and bloggers can speak up. Online comments on articles are a good way to present a viewpoint. People can use more alternate media. Traditionists should invest in new alternative outlets.
Corruption of Big Tech, Science, and the Arts
Sen. Cruz sees Big Tech censorship as the greatest threat to free speech in our society. He argues that today the very means by which most Americans get their news and interact with one another has been twisted and poisoned. Partisan actors believe it is their duty to spread radical leftist ideas far and wide, and to suppress any ideas that might compete with them. This can be countered by vigorous oversight from Congress, aggressive enforcement of antitrust laws, and enforcement of consumer protection laws. Strict neutrality must be maintained.There was a time when scientists conducted research to discover the answer to a problem. In the early 1600s, for instance, knowing that it was illegal to endorse, teach, or write about his theory, according to the established leaders of the Church, the Italian astronomer Galileo did thousands of experiments to find the truth. He persisted because he believed he knew the facts.
Today, woke doctors and science researchers reach their conclusions first, then make sure that their experiments are conducted in a way that their conclusions are verified. There needs to be more questioning of conclusions in science, not blind acceptance.
The senator sees grave danger when art and politics begin to mix; what is left is not art but propaganda. As progressives impose more rules on the people who make art, the art will get worse, and the people who are exposed to it will become more indoctrinated than ever. Sadly, much of entertainment has been taken over by cultural Marxists.
Sen. Cruz suggests creating new avenues of entertainment as well as retaking the old ones. He wants traditionalists to get more serious about making movies, and points to Mel Gibson. When Hollywood would not finance his films, Gibson made the courageous decision to produce “The Passion of the Christ” himself. The film ended up grossing over $612 million worldwide.
America’s Greatest Threat
Sen. Cruz states that the United States needs to stand against and deal directly with the threats the Chinese regime poses. He says, there is not only strong evidence that COVID-19 escaped from a Chinese government lab, but considerable evidence that it was made there.
When people say that we immediately must transition our energy resources from oil and gas to wind and solar, what they are really saying is that American energy independence should be exchanged for complete and total dependence on China. America needs to recognize China’s threat to this country.
Books like “Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America” are crucial to a healthy society. “Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied,” according to historian Robert Boyce. Hopefully books like these will stop the Marxists’ plans to destroy America.
