 In the last few decades, a combination of drugs, crime, and violence have ravaged certain communities in America. At the same time, we’ve seen a shift of jobs overseas, an erosion of civil society, and an overall decline in economic mobility—with many now feeling the American Dream is just a pipe dream after all, according to Ja’Ron Smith and Chris Pilkerton. They’re the co-authors of the new book, “Underserved: Harnessing the Principles of Lincoln's Vision for Reconstruction for Today's Forgotten Communities.” During the Trump administration, Ja’Ron Smith served as deputy director of the Office of American Innovation, and Chris Pilkerton as acting head of the Small Business Administration. How do we revitalize these forgotten communities? How do we reverse the economic damage caused by pandemic-era policies? And how do we unite the 2 sides of the aisle? We discuss the matter in this episode of American Thought Leaders.

Ravaged Communities: Ja’Ron Smith and Chris Pilkerton on Globalization, Drugs, and the Erosion of Civil Society

At a time when our nation is portrayed as increasingly polarized, media often ignore viewpoints and stories that are worthy of attention. American Thought Leaders, hosted by The Epoch Times Senior Editor Jan Jekielek, features in-depth discussions with some of America’s most influential thought leaders on pertinent issues facing our nation today.

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Sponsor special: Up to $2,500 of FREE silver AND a FREE safe on qualifying orders - Call 855-862-3377 or text “AMERICAN” to 6-5-5-3-2 “I think we now have to make sure that we understand what an adversary China is, and make sure that we’re not playing into our own demise,” says Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. She has taken a strong stance on the communist China threat, and she has also been going against the grain in Canada with her policies on energy, COVID mandates, the drug crisis, and “gender-affirming care.” In this episode, I had a chance to do a deep dive with her about her thinking around these policies. “I want Alberta to just be this bastion of freedom and liberty,” Ms. Smith says. “I want to make sure we preserve it.” Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.   

Premier Danielle Smith on CCP Subversion: We Shouldn’t Be ‘Playing Into Our Own Demise’

Sponsor special: Up to $2,500 of FREE silver AND a FREE safe on qualifying orders - Call 855-862-3377 or text “AMERICAN” to 6-5-5-3-2 “They actually believe that all children are intrinsically queer, and that what’s happening is that normal society is ’socializing‘ them, which is a fancy word for ’brainwashing' them, to be normal, which means—for them—not queer, where queer is a political stance.” In this episode, I sit down with James Lindsay and Logan Lansing to discuss their new book, “The Queering of the American Child: How a New School Religious Cult Poisons the Minds and Bodies of Normal Kids.” “It took me less than one minute to find a whole suite of furry literature about children adopting ‘fursonas,’ or furry personas, and identifying not as human, explicitly underwritten by queer theory in the doctrine,” says Mr. Lancing. What is queer theory? Who are its biggest proponents? And what practical impact has it had on America’s youth, our institutions, and society at large? “What they define for a pedagogy right from the beginning in 1993, was a radical form of educative activism, implemented deliberately to interfere with, to intervene in the production of normalcy in school subjects, which is just technical gobbledygook from queer theory. That means we are going to use critical pedagogy as a method and we’re going to make sure kids do not turn out normal,” says Mr. Lancing. “They’re going to turn out deviant, abnormal, perverse—whatever it is that is positioned against the norm, that is the goal. And they laid that out. Right at the very beginning. They also added that their goal was to make it explicitly activist in nature, so there is no room for interpretation.” “There are no brakes on the train. Yesterday’s radical is today’s conservative. It has to keep moving towards the direction of completely dissolving normalcy, boundaries, and legitimacy. So, don’t be surprised if it gets a bit crazier than even children biting other children while they’re dressed as dogs and cats and wearing tails,” says Mr. Lancing. “And it was meant to bring about what Paulo Freire’s vision was: a next generation, non-Soviet, Marxist revolution in the children, based off of an education system he derived from Mao Zedong, in his own words. What Mao had done in the 1950s successfully with children, he imported into his method,” says Mr. Lindsay. “But, of course, we know that Mao used that in the mid-1960s as the basis to create his Red Guard that then went and did exactly what we see schoolchildren in America doing today. Can they read? Not really. Can they write? Not so much. How are they at math? Failing. However, they know to show up on the statehouse steps when there’s some policy they don’t like or when something happens, so that they can do a die-in or they can do some kind of show of activism.” Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guests, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

James Lindsay and Logan Lancing Expose the Truth Behind Queer Theory

“As long as the world can believe that Palestinians are refugees in perpetuity and are stateless in perpetuity because of a so-called colonial empire that has been thrust upon them by the Jews, then they have the sympathy of the world. And that has been their success story.” Following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, many of us became aware, for the first time, of UNRWA, the United Nations agency serving Palestinian refugees. It receives hundreds of millions of dollars from the United States every year. “UNRWA has basically transformed itself into an advocacy organization for the Palestinian people—what I would consider to be a case study of where the client has hijacked the service provider. So, where you have an entire apparatus of an agency, but that has the imprimatur of the United Nations, and so gives the illusion of neutrality, integrity, and whatnot,” says Asaf Romirowsky, a Middle East historian and co-author of “Religion, Politics, and the Origins of Palestine Refugee Relief.” Established in 1949, UNRWA was supposed to be a temporary organization. So how did it become one of the largest and costliest U.N. agencies? And how is it that the number of Palestinian refugees has ballooned sevenfold, according to UNRWA, when virtually all other refugees established after World War II have been resettled? To find out, I sat down with Mr. Romirowsky, executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. “UNRWA has been proven to be exactly synonymous to Hamas. The fact that they had Hamas servers under their headquarters, the fact that they had individuals who were part of the perpetrators of the attacks on October 7—UNRWA is no longer a legitimate organization. They have never been to my mind. ... It’s an obstacle to peace, rather than a solution to peace,” says Mr. Romirowsky. “I think that there’s a disconnect—and this has always been something we’ve observed here and in Europe about the reality on the ground and what it takes to create peace. I think peace is a goal and should be the goal. But ... there has to be mutual recognition. ... There has been a refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.” Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

The Giant UN Agency Hijacked by Hamas: Asaf Romirowsky

Sponsor special: Up to $2,500 of FREE silver AND a FREE safe on qualifying orders - Call 855-862-3377 or text “AMERICAN” to 6-5-5-3-2 In this wide-ranging interview, I get independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s candid take on the biggest challenges he sees facing America today. What does RFK Jr. see as the path forward when it comes to the rise in chronic diseases among young Americans, big tech manipulation, the Israel-Gaza war, and the threat of communist China? Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

RFK Jr. Takes on Trump and Biden Over Four ‘Existential’ Issues

“How is it possible that the churches, or many churches, decided to close their doors exactly during those times when they were supposed to have their doors open?” Cristian Terhes is a Romanian-Greek Catholic priest and a Member of the European Parliament, representing Romania as a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group. Growing up under communism made him vigilant against creeping totalitarianism. “You will have unelected officials, bureaucrats, often unknown bureaucrats, deciding on behalf of your state. And if they decide that something is wrong for the people, they will not be accountable because you don’t even know who those people are,” says MEP Terhes. In this episode, he shares a warning about the consolidation of power he sees in international bodies like the European Union and the World Health Organization. “We are witnessing the ‘Chinafication’ of Europe. And I gave the example of the digital COVID certificate, but it did not stop there,” says MEP Terhes. We discuss the cultural and political transformation of Europe since the start of the COVID pandemic, from radical gender policy to the erosion of national constitutions. Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Ravaged Communities: Ja’Ron Smith and Chris Pilkerton on Globalization, Drugs, and the Erosion of Civil Society

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