As noted many times on this blog, I majored in history in college and have always loved history. In my view, those who do not know accurate history are easily misled and manipulated into doing the bidding of tyrants and often fall victim of repeating the same mistakes made in prior generations (e.g., the Chimperator's fools errand in Iraq). Thus, I find it extremely disturbing to see the far right elements of the GOP/Christianist camp endeavoring to rewrite the USA's history to conform it to their own lunatic views and try to guarantee that the populace is too ignorant to realize that it is being played for a fool. The New York Times in its main editorial takes to task the mentally deranged Kool-Aid drinkers on the Texas Board of Education who are doing their best to rewrite history to ft their religious sensibilities and in the process turn the USA into a nation of dimwitted idiots. It both makes my blood boil and frightens me that these religious extremists are getting away with such garbage. Here are some highlights.*
The Texas Board of Education, notorious for its past efforts to undermine the teaching of evolution in public schools, has now moved to revise the social studies curriculum to portray conservative ideas and movements in a more positive light and emphasize the role of Christianity in the nation’s founding.
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It was a disturbing intervention by the board’s Republican majority into educational decisions best left to the teachers and scholars who have toiled for almost a year to produce the new curriculum standards.
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Some of the changes sound merely foolish, like replacing the word “capitalism” with the words “free-enterprise system.” One board member explained that the term capitalism has negative connotations, as in “capitalist pig.” Others are very worrisome, like questioning the doctrine of “separation between church and state” and dropping Thomas Jefferson, who coined the phrase, from a list of figures whose writings inspired political revolutions from the 1700s on.
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It is anti-knowledge theocrats such as these who will take the USA into its own dark ages just as the Visigoths and others destroyed the knowledge of the ancient Romans and Greeks and brought about Europe's Medieval Period of ignorance.
The Texas Board of Education, notorious for its past efforts to undermine the teaching of evolution in public schools, has now moved to revise the social studies curriculum to portray conservative ideas and movements in a more positive light and emphasize the role of Christianity in the nation’s founding.
*
It was a disturbing intervention by the board’s Republican majority into educational decisions best left to the teachers and scholars who have toiled for almost a year to produce the new curriculum standards.
*
Some of the changes sound merely foolish, like replacing the word “capitalism” with the words “free-enterprise system.” One board member explained that the term capitalism has negative connotations, as in “capitalist pig.” Others are very worrisome, like questioning the doctrine of “separation between church and state” and dropping Thomas Jefferson, who coined the phrase, from a list of figures whose writings inspired political revolutions from the 1700s on.
*
It is anti-knowledge theocrats such as these who will take the USA into its own dark ages just as the Visigoths and others destroyed the knowledge of the ancient Romans and Greeks and brought about Europe's Medieval Period of ignorance.
2 comments:
The Texas school book revisions are nothing more than the continuing Republican agenda in action. This is what the tea-baggers and their ilk desire. Some sort of taking America back to the 19th Century or some such nonsense. But this is what they are striving to accomplish for the entire country. In Virginia one can expect the re-institution of slavery if things keep going in the direction they are heading at the moment. Challenging times.
The Texas school book revisions are nothing more than the continuing Republican agenda in action. This is what the tea-baggers and their ilk desire. Some sort of taking America back to the 19th Century or some such nonsense. But this is what they are striving to accomplish for the entire country. In Virginia one can expect the re-institution of slavery if things keep going in the direction they are heading at the moment. Challenging times.
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