By Stephanie L. Mann

October 1, 2024

For decades, politicians and community leaders have perpetuated myths as the cycle of drug abuse, child abuse, crime, gangs, and violence continue from one generation to the next. These myths include:

Myth #1 – Police can keep us safe.

Police have a limited role. Additional police on the streets increase response time, but their job is to react to crime. Citizens can PREVENT crime! The national average is 2.1 police for every 1000 citizens. It is not realistic to assume the police can keep us safe.

Myth #2 – More money will stop crime.

In the past 40 years, taxpayers have spent billions of dollars on home security, guards, swat teams, training, scanning equipment, shot spotter, and surveillance cameras. Money does not stop domestic violence or youth from being abused at home or bullied at school. It does not put a responsible father back home or increase time spent with children. Only strong families, good schools and neighborhoods can keep children safe.

Myth #3 – Hitting and verbal abuse will not harm children!

Abused children struggle to be accepted. They often learn to bully, or they become victims. They don’t trust their instincts or intuition or develop a healthy conscience, which can protect them. Children grow strong and resilient when they have love and neighbors who offer support and help each other.

Myth #4 – Laws control criminal behavior.

Politicians write laws to keep the public safe. Laws have limitations. Most citizens obey rules, but criminals, gangs, pimps, and drug dealers ignore laws.

Myth #5 – Racism keeps the community oppressed.

The blame game divides and distracts from real solutions. Blaming police or society perpetuates anger. Anger gives disconnected youth an excuse to be violent and become self-destructive, which is a false sense of power.

Myth #6 – Poverty keeps people from progressing.

Politicians gain power by creating an illusion of compassion. For decades, politicians have spent billions of taxpayer dollars on programs, including the “War on Poverty” and “War on Drugs.” Some programs helped, but others destroyed self-confidence, self-determination, and motivation.

Myths have some truth, but they don’t change behavior. Every criminal is living in a neighborhood and don’t want to be noticed. Connected and involved citizens have the power to reduce fear and create positive change to restore community trust, safety, and confidence.

America is at a crossroads.

Will security in the U.S. require more laws and less freedom, or will we focus on supporting neighborhoods and strengthening families?

The largest group of crime victims are children. They are “canaries in the mine.”

Three major shifts are needed to create peaceful cities.

• An awakening to raise resilient, spiritually centered children with
  a self-protective conscience.
• America’s 350,000 churches can promote “Love thy Neighbor.” They can support and get youth involved to reach out into neighborhoods and offer help.  They can provide meetings to bring people together.
• Community involvement creates safe neighborhoods and, ultimately,
  safer, friendlier cities.

Our national goal must be to strengthen families. Freedom is an inner journey with supportive families and a network of connected neighbors who create a strong sense of community.

A CALL TO ACTION – Go to safekidsnow.com and download a FREE guide on How to create a safe neighborhood.

For more info, contact, Safe Kids Now. We will answer your questions and help you create community change.  www.safekidsnow.com/contact

© 2024 Stephanie L. Mann – All Rights Reserved

E-Mail Stephanie Mann: safeneighborhoods@gmail.com

Website: http://www.safekidsnow.com/

By Cliff Kincaid

October 1, 2024

Living near the city of Gettysburg, the location of the pivotal battle in the American Civil War, has provided a great opportunity to learn the lessons of that war. What is more, the World War II Experience Museum in Gettysburg was the setting for Holocaust survivor Sami Steigmann to provide a vision of victory in the global civil war.

On the day it was announced that Israel had terminated the head of the Islamic terrorist group Hezbollah, Steigmann made a dramatic appearance at in the conference room of a museum that brings to life the stories of American sacrifice, unity, and might in World War II. He discussed the will of the Jewish people to survive the Nazi extermination campaign and defeat the modern-day Nazis in the form of global Islamic terrorism.

My detailed report on his presentation can be found on my website www.usasurvival.org

“I am not politically correct,” he told the audience, as he turned his attention during the question-and-answer period to several controversial current issues such as the Ukraine war, saying further arms shipments to the Zelensky government would only result in more suffering and death. He urged a peace settlement with Russia so the world could concentrate on the global Islamic war on the West.

“Right now, the United States is forcing Israel to fight with their hands behind their back,” he said, indicating the struggle will not be over even if Hezbollah and Hamas are obliterated. “I wish Israel would become independent” and free of such influence, he said.

Regarding the anti-Israel protests, he labeled them as led by “educated idiots” and “useful idiots” who have been brainwashed by the American educational establishment and added that those of Arab or Muslim origin studying on these campuses and shouting “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” or “Global Intifada” should be deported.

For our part, America’s Survival described these colleges and universities as Marxist Madrassas and the threat to Israel and America as the Red Jihad, as a result of Russian sponsorship or financing of Arab and Islamic terrorist groups like the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Asked by this journalist if Israel was fighting for its own survival, he agreed but quickly added that it was fighting “for the West” as well.

As the anniversary of the invasion of Israel on October 7 by Hamas approaches, Steigmann said about that attack: “Even the Nazis were not that brutal.”

Steigmann, who served in the Israeli Air Force but now lives in the United States, said Hamas was worse than the Nazis and more like ISIS, another Islamic terrorist group notorious for its terrorist tactics but wiped out by the Trump Administration. It is now regrouping in the Middle East and Afghanistan, where the Biden Administration hastily withdrew U.S. forces in 2021.

Steigmann, now a motivational speaker who loves to address students and young people, said the Holocaust was a unique moment in history but that “Jew hatred” is growing again in today’s world and is reflected in in the pro-Hamas demonstrations by young people who chant the anti-Israel slogan “From the river to the sea” but can’t identify which river and which sea.

Steigmann was only 18 months old when he was sent to a Nazi camp, which was eventually liberated. He was later informed that his constant pain as he was growing up was the result of Nazi medical experiments. He survived only because a German civilian who was providing food to the Nazi camp guards gave him milk when he was on the verge of starvation.

In the same way we must understand the origins of World War II, he said the war in Ukraine must be understood in the context of the hostility between Russia and Ukraine that goes back at least 200 years.

More than two years into the war, he said the United States and Germany had objected to proposals for a ceasefire, even though Russia was prepared to accept certain controversial territorial concessions from Ukraine in exchange for the end to the conflict. He said the war against Russia cannot be won militarily and that further shipments of munitions to the government of Ukraine would only result in more deaths on both sides.

The Biden/Harris Administration now sees these arms shipments as a U.S. jobs program, as reflected in Zelensky’s visit to an ammunition plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he was surrounded by Democrat politicians.

Steigmann sees the arms shipments as morally questionable, saying, “Right now, by giving more ammunition to Ukraine, the only thing they [the U.S. Government] will accomplish is that the war will be prolonged and a lot of innocent people will die.”

Steigmann, who lived in the communist nation of Romania, said he understands the communist mentality and that Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB colonel, “is not the type of person you move easily.” He added, “As long as the military is with him, the war will not stop.”

Putin has another advantage: he has thousands of nuclear weapons and Ukraine gave the weapons it inherited after the Soviet break-up back to Moscow under an agreement negotiated by President Bill Clinton.

Under these circumstances, a “land for peace” option make sense in that war, because of the unique nature of that conflict, not to mention the problems caused by corruption in the government of Ukraine.

But Steigmann emphasized that a “land for peace” formula for appeasing the Islamists to somehow assure Israel’s sovereignty and survival makes absolutely no sense. “For the Arabs, appeasement is weakness,” he said. That position would rule out the Kamala Harris “two-state solution,” allowing an Islamic state next to Israel in the Middle East on a permanent basis.

© 2024 Cliff Kincaid – All Rights Reserved

E-Mail Cliff Kincaid: kincaid@comcast.net

• Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. usasurvival.org