Political Message

* Sure, it was exciting when it was announced that Ventura County was to get its own university, Cal State Channel Islands.

It soon became worrisome when all the things in the paper about what was transpiring out there started to sound like we were erecting Politically Correct University. Then we were told that a Dr. Handel Evans was to found the new university, the same person who started Cal State Monterey, which I’m told is as dumbed-down a university as we have in California, if that’s possible. The social science and liberal arts colleges are a left-wing socialist indoctrination, full of Marxist propaganda, and a slap in the face of higher education.

Now we learn that CSUCI will be a training ground to prepare teachers to carry their leftist message to our youth. Ventura County residents need to ask ourselves if this is the image our educational system should be saddled with.

Educators are by definition idealists. But they need to understand, as we should, that they exist in the fantasy land world of academia. Instead of rewriting history they should study it fully. The reason for this is that educators, the media, entertainers, all the idealists were instrumental in the rise of communism in Russia. When it took hold, they were some of the first to disappear.

For totalitarianism to take hold, governments must:

* Dumb down the education system.

* Divide the people.

* Disarm the citizenry.

* Promote reliance on mother country.

* Demonize religions.

Sound familiar? Before I can get excited about CSUCI, I think the lovers of freedom should demand assurances from Handel Evans that he is not an agent of the first two of those and then he should be watched like a hawk.

MIKE HANNIN

Newbury Park