Duck and Cover
By David Codrea, December 12th 2014
JPFO writer contributor, © 2014.
Back during the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the United States government produced a combination animation/live action “documentary” as part of the Civil Defense Administration effort to teach schoolchildren to hide under their desks in the event of a nuclear attack. “Duck and Cover,” featuring a cartoon “Bert the turtle,” has received its share of ridicule over the years, but it’s tough to argue that in cases where the explosion is far enough away so that being vaporized or subjected to a lethal dose of radiation isn’t the main concern, shielding yourself from blast effects makes more sense than certain parody protest instructions.
The same cannot be said for a new video from Michael Bloomberg’s Moms Demand Action anti-gun propaganda campaign. “We can’t hide from gun violence,” presented as a “powerful new ad,” approaches parody itself in the glaring contradiction between claim and recommended course of action. The setting is a modern elementary school classroom, where the teacher is instructing her young charges to put their art supplies away when an alarm suddenly sounds and a lockdown announcement comes over the PA system.
“Everybody put everything down and get in your safe place now,” the teacher commands, pulling the classroom door window cover down as the children assume positions under their desks. Somehow, in the face of what’s to come, those don’t seem like very safe places. The supposed adult in charge then squats down against the wall by a set of plastic drawers, motioning the frightened children to stay down as a mournful piano with an ominous, lingering atmospheric pad takes over the soundtrack, just to make sure viewers have their emotions properly manipulated over how terrible it all is. It must be, because the teacher sure looks bummed, and the kids all properly anxious and afraid.
One thing about Bloomberg — he can afford first-rate production values. And the music must have also taken its toll on the news announcers in the ensuing audio collage.
“There has been another school shooting,” says one. “Tragedy hits close to home once again,” another proclaims.
“Almost 100 school shootings since Newtown,” yet one more insists, parroting a fraudulent Everytown talking point that more than one “authorized journalist” has unquestioningly swallowed whole. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, it depends on what the meaning of the term “school shooting is,” 
as an analysis debunking the claim and exposing what “qualifies” demonstrates. Besides, it’s not like Bloomberg & Co. don’t know schools are, for the most part, government-mandated “gun-free zones” — their goal is to make everywhere else a GFZ, too.
No worries, though. It turns out, as a second PA announcement lets everyone know, this was only a “lockdown drill.” It sure would have been nice of them to tell the kids that, before subjecting them to child abuse via psychological torture. More than ensuring safety, the whole point seems to be to scare the rhymes-with-tap out of them and condition them to view dangerous situations as something adults in immediate authority are just as helpless to do anything about as they are. Talk about politically-driven programming of paranoia into young minds not equipped to evaluate the reliability of information being forced on them by "authority" figures. And talk about a useless "adult" that parents are abdicating their most precious responsibilities to.
Perhaps that’s why the Moms don’t allow comments at their YouTube account. If they did, they’d be subjected to questions like the ones raised here, or to a perceptive one raised by a visitor to my WarOnGuns blog, who noted the solution of people who claim we can’t hide from gun violence is — are you ready for this? — to hide from it.
This isn’t the first time we’ve observed that, for “progressives,” every day is Opposite Day .
Still, who thinks the people ultimately behind the brainwashing don’t know exactly what they’re doing, and following a greater plan, even if not all useful idiot teachers and administrators are on board with the intent behind the deception, and actually believe the con they’re getting kids to fall for?
That’s not to say all teachers and all administrators are “progressive” dolts — there are some wonderful, professional individuals and some islands of sanity, and a growing number of states making provisions that don’t interfere with teachers and other responsible adults carrying firearms. In my home state of Ohio, just to name one, the statewide grassroots group Buckeye Firearms Association has enjoyed overwhelming success with its Armed Teacher Training Program.
Back during the Cold War — and still, if we wanted to be honest about it — the danger of a nuclear attack was a real possibility deterred by the one thing that always keeps aggressors at bay — the probability that the target possessed sufficient firepower, capability and will to destroy an initiator of violence. That’s also true for individual attackers. We, each of us, can possess the means to defend ourselves, our loved ones, and those for whom we have accepted responsibility. In the face of evil, we can play Bert the turtle and retreat into our shells while a monster slaughters innocents depending on us for protection, or we can assume our role as free men and women who provide the only true civil defense, that which the founders deemed necessary to the security of a free State.
David Codrea is a field editor at GUNS Magazine, penning their monthly "Rights Watch" column. He provides regular reporting and commentary at Gun Rights Examiner and blogs at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance. David Codrea's Archive page.
