Crucial Communism Teaching Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. SALAZAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge the passage of my bill, H.R. 5349, the Crucial Communism Teaching Act.

My legislation will develop a curriculum on the real, brutal history of communism and provide States with the resources to implement it from kindergarten through the end of high school.

This bill is crucial at this hour for the health of our Nation.

Why is that, Mr. Speaker?

It is because America's youth has been brainwashed by media and academia for the last 30 years to believe that communism is good.

What a travesty. What a horror. Ask my parents and my community if that is true.

I am just going to bring you some proof, Mr. Speaker. Nearly 40 percent of Gen Zers and millennials think that ``The Communist Manifesto'' written by Karl Marx is a better defense of freedom than the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson.

Just picture that, Mr. Speaker. Jefferson and Karl Marx, for 40 percent of Gen Zers, Marx wins over Jefferson. What a problem we have in this country.

The Declaration of Independence, as we all know, gave birth to the longest and most prosperous democracy in the world, ours, and that is why we have to preserve it through this bill.

More than one-third of millennials approve of communism because they do not know what they are talking about or what this is all about. They don't know that communism has claimed over 100 million lives all over the world, making it the deadliest ideology known to mankind.

I represent the people of the city of Miami, which is the heart of the Cuban exile community. It is the refuge of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans who have, in record numbers, fled the horrors of this ideology. We would like, through this bill, to teach our kids not to fall into that trap.

Let's just talk about Venezuela. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. That is a fact. It used to have the same GDP as Germany only 25 years ago. That is another fact. It has an inflation rate right now of over 150 percent. The average Venezuelan has lost 15 pounds for lack of food in a country that has the largest oil reserves in the world. Something doesn't match.

In the last 25 years, nearly 8 million Venezuelans fled the country, a country that, as I said, has the largest reserves of oil and is full of natural resources.

Now let's go to Nicaragua. It was the breadbasket of Central America 25 years ago. Under Communist Daniel Ortega, 28,000 properties have been expropriated, and Nicaraguans now are poorer than they were in the seventies.

A couple of years ago, seven of the last presidential contenders were put in jail because elections for Communists is a problem, therefore, you have to stifle them and you put your political opponents in jail. That is the easiest part because there is no accountability.

Now let's go to Cuba where my parents come from. My parents fled in the sixties. Seventy percent of Cubans today eat only once a day. The average Cuban makes $1 a day as income. In 1960, Cuba had a per capita income close to Italy or Argentina.

Hunger, being hungry, is a very powerful motivator. Thousands and thousands of Cubans, I have known some of them, throw themselves into the ocean in the Florida Straits to get to Miami, facing the sharks and facing drowning just to escape that Communist inferno. They expose their children to that. Just picture what that means. What kind of life do you have to be living wherever you are in Cuba that you throw yourself into the ocean and face the sharks in the dark?

Today, the average Cuban has 1 hour of electricity, and they have no food, no water, no medicine, no clothes, and they are desperate to come to the United States.

This is an island that is 90 miles away from the United States, which is the most powerful economy in the world, and an island that could be Taiwan, Singapore, or Hong Kong but for communism.

Now let's leave this hemisphere and let's go to China. In China, up to 55 million people starved to death under Mao Zedong in the Great Leap Forward.

Mao was one of the most evil Communist leaders, we all know, but, Mr. Speaker, do you know that nearly one-half of our American kids do not even know who Mao Zedong is?

In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge murdered 1 million people.

In the USSR, 10 million were sent to freeze to death.

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Ms. SALAZAR. Communists are in the business of power. It only takes one generation to believe their false promises and we lose everything.

We cannot misinform our children. Knowledge is power. Churchill said that by studying history, ``the farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.''

Communism only leads to destruction and misery.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. This bill has nothing to do with politics, and it has nothing to do with political parties. It has to do with preserving the institution and what we have created as a Nation.

Let's teach our children about the truth. Let's not fall into the trap. Let's start from kindergarten to teach the children, and then they will be able to make a knowledgeable decision when they go to the voting booth.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Let's pass H.R. 5349.

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