Texas Approves Curriculum Revised by Conservatives

[Marcus Bryant]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html


Even the course on World History did not escape the board’s scalpel.

Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among the conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)

“The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based,” Ms. Dunbar said.

[Marcus Bryant]

Then again, he sliced and diced the Bible (http://books.google.com/books?id=AmAJAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=jefferson+bible&source=bl&ots=DasumiwalI&sig=igab7gOgv5_6_8M_WRhBDSKb_Jo&hl=en&ei=aLqaS-XrL8G78gaKlPn4DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCIQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=&f=false), so there are a few reasons for that crew to hate TJ.

Still, what "conservative" dislikes Jefferson?

MFer.

[EVAY]

This is appalling.

[z0sa]

“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”

[EVAY]

What's more, given the size of the Texas state orders for textbooks, the influence of these people extends far beyond our own students in this state.

[Stringer_Bell]

"Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs..."

I like how the myth of our country teaches us pilgrims came to this land to escape religious persecution, then the country ends up being run by Christian beliefs...what just happened to being cool with each other because it's natural to be nice to each other? Fucking stupid "conservatives" wouldn't know what conservative meant if it bit them in ass.

[EVAY]

“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”

So, the first amendment to the constitution is not a part of the constitution?

Is it not an as amended document?

[Marcus Bryant]

American public education is truly about what to think (and how to heel to your boss and political overlords) than it is about how to think and learn. Then again, education truly occurs only by yourself and in spite of those who believe they have things figured out for you.

Naturally educational policy is shaped by those with an ax to grind and the truly nutty, on both political "sides" in these United States.

[TheProfessor]

This is appalling.

[EVAY]

Another of my favorites: "There were no historians, sociologists or economists consulted at the meetings..."

[z0sa]

Another of my favorites: "There were no historians, sociologists or economists consulted at the meetings..."

Are there usually historians, sociologists or economists consulted during these deliberations? There should be, but if there's no precedent, it doesn't mean much.

[EVAY]

Are there usually historians, sociologists or economists consulted during these deliberations? There should be, but if there's no precedent, it doesn't mean much.

If the Board members are setting themselves up as 'experts' and overriding the recommendations of educators, then it would seem like a nice touch to have some recognized experts address the issues in front of them.

God knows you find economists on any side of any issue, as well as hisatorians and sociologists. So why couldn't they just bring some in?

[Marcus Bryant]

What's most appalling is that there is a state apparatus certain groups seek to control because of its influence in shaping individual thought. It's not education, but rather a tool of indoctrination. To which agenda will the factory school fine tune its product?

[Oh, Gee!!]

there will be a chapter on obama's birth certificate

[coyotes_geek]

This story makes me think of the last few minutes to the move Thank You For Smoking where Senator Finistirre is talking about "improving history".

[admiralsnackbar]

Are there usually historians, sociologists or economists consulted during these deliberations? There should be, but if there's no precedent, it doesn't mean much.

Authorities in equivalent disciplines appeared before the board to defend scientific principles when the biology books were being chosen, but they weren't asked to consult.

[EVAY]

This is not an example of conservatism.

I consider myself more conservative than not. This is not conservatism. This is far-right-wing social and religious radicalism. Pure and simple.

[TeyshaBlue]

Thankfully, Dunbar did not get re-elected to the board. Now she can fade back into some kinda bizarre obscurity again. What a nutbar.

[TeyshaBlue]

This is not an example of conservatism.

I consider myself more conservative than not. This is not conservatism. This is far-right-wing social and religious radicalism. Pure and simple.

+ fucking 10

[Oh, Gee!!]

a chapter about how the entire history of the universe goes back 4000 years, and how dinosaurs roamed the earth with mankind

[boutons_deux]

militant, intolerant, racist "Christian" jihadists dragging TX education even further behind the rest of the country.

[TeyshaBlue]

militant, intolerant, racist "Christian" jihadists dragging TX eduction even further behind the rest of the country.

Nothing more refreshing than a nice, cold glass of irony.


:lmao:lmao:lmao

[boutons_deux]

Nothing more refreshing than a nice, cold glass of irony.


:lmao:lmao:lmao

trash talkin typos, are we? GFY

[TeyshaBlue]

trash talkin typos, are we? GFY

Oh, roll with it you pussy. It was funny. Hell, I pwn myself 10 times before breakfast. Go rent a sense of humor, will ya?

[greyforest]

good, hopefully this blows up in their face as kids suddenly give a shit about what is censored from them

[MannyIsGod]

Psh, the board that censors what goes into Texas school books does this shit every year. If you think this is bad you should see what happens to the sciences. Whats sad is that Texas is such a large textbook market a lot of what ends up being cut for books here also gets cut in other places.

[spursncowboys]

pass:
bc and ad will be used again to describe the time periods (I didn't know they didn't use them anymore)


fail:
naming the two hispanic medal of honor recipients because they were hispanic.

[baseline bum]

What a stupid cunt. LMFAO @ a "constitutionalist" hating Jefferson.

[Stringer_Bell]

pass:
bc and ad will be used again to describe the time periods (I didn't know they didn't use them anymore)


fail:
naming the two hispanic medal of honor recipients because they were hispanic.

Of course it fails, why would they want to so Hispanics in an exceptional light or high achievement? So the kids have something to aim for? Have you seen how thick those books and military honors documents are? Fuck that, keep them in the dark about the accomplishments of ALL Americans that would show this country's greatness as a melting pot of cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Also, I'm curious what our friends Darrin, Wild Cobra, and Yoni think of this whole "constitutionalist" education assessment.

EDIT: Even if you're kids are in private school, they will still have to put up with public school idiots when they grow up. Surely someone must be outraged. :(

[PixelPusher]

there will be a chapter on obama's birth certificate


a chapter about how the entire history of the universe goes back 4000 years, and how dinosaurs roamed the earth with mankind

Teach the controversy!

[PixelPusher]

They love the 2nd Amendment so much they wish they could just call it the 1st Amendment instead:


11:21 - Board member Barbara Cargill wants to insert a discussion of the right to bear arms in a standard that focuses on First Amendment rights and the expression of various points of view. This is absurd. If they want students to study the right to bear arms, at least try to find an appropriate place in the standards for it. This is yet another example of politicians destroying the coherence of a curriculum document for no reason other than promoting ideological pet causes. Republican board member Bob Craig of Lubbock is suggesting a better place for such a standard. But the amendment passes anyway. The board's far-right faction is simply impervious to logic.

11:30 - Board member Pat Hardy notes that elsewhere the standards already require students to study each of the freedoms and rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. No one seems to care.

11:33 - Bob Craig tries, once again, to talk some sense into these folks. Board member Cynthia Dunbar argues that the original standard's focus on the rights of "petition, assembly, speech, and press in a democratic society" unfairly emphasizes the First Amendment over others. She suggests taking that out altogether if the Second Amendment isn't included. Board member Ken Mercer argues that the right to bear arms is too important not to include here. But it IS included in the standards. The purpose of the original standard is to have students understand the rights to free expression in a democratic society. The right to bear arms is not relevant to that purpose.

[PixelPusher]

Then again, he sliced and diced the Bible (http://books.google.com/books?id=AmAJAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=jefferson+bible&source=bl&ots=DasumiwalI&sig=igab7gOgv5_6_8M_WRhBDSKb_Jo&hl=en&ei=aLqaS-XrL8G78gaKlPn4DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCIQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=&f=false), so there are a few reasons for that crew to hate TJ.

Still, what "conservative" dislikes Jefferson?

MFer.

...and now that Thomas Jefferson has been blinkered out of American History Tex, who do they cite for introducing the concept of states rights? Even the retarded rump that calls themselves conservatives still love states rights, right?

[jack sommerset]

Thomas Jefferson was a wild man. He fucked his slaves. Two big thumbs up!

[DMX7]

Thomas Jefferson hated Christianity... so these bible thumping faggots hate him.

[spursncowboys]

Express News
Mary Helen Berlanga, D-Corpus Christi, said the standards ignore the Ku Klux Klan in Texas, Texas Rangers “killing Mexican-Americans without justification” and the U.S. Army's role in the attempted extermination of American Indians.

[spursncowboys]

Thomas Jefferson hated Christianity... so these bible thumping faggots hate him.
you sure about that?

[baseline bum]

Did they censor Benjamin Franklin out of the books too since he said lighthouses were more valuable than churches?

[baseline bum]

Gotta sweep our nation's own episode of genocide under the rug, eh sc?

[spursncowboys]

Of course it fails, why would they want to so Hispanics in an exceptional light or high achievement? So the kids have something to aim for? Have you seen how thick those books and military honors documents are? Fuck that, keep them in the dark about the accomplishments of ALL Americans that would show this country's greatness as a melting pot of cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Also, I'm curious what our friends Darrin, Wild Cobra, and Yoni think of this whole "constitutionalist" education assessment.

EDIT: Even if you're kids are in private school, they will still have to put up with public school idiots when they grow up. Surely someone must be outraged. :(
I have a problem with the picking of soldiers' accomplishments for a history lesson solely based on their race.

[spursncowboys]

Gotta sweep our nation's own episode of genocide under the rug, eh sc?
1. I find it humorous that the big argument for liberals were this. It's good to know what progressives are interested in teaching: capitalism is bad and american exceptionalism is a fairy tale.
2. it wasn't genocide.

[baseline bum]

Manifest destiny. Fuck yeah!

[spursncowboys]

you don't like it bb, then leave. everything we have is from the actions taken, manifest destiny included. How safe of a lib to sit and demonize it, and at the same time, utilize the benefits that you are attacking.
But you love your country and how dare someone question your patriotism.

[baseline bum]

you don't like it bb, then leave. everything we have is from the actions taken, manifest destiny included. How safe of a lib to sit and demonize it, and at the same time, utilize the benefits that you are attacking.
But you love your country and how dare someone question your patriotism.

Haha, you're such a fascist fucktard.

[spursncowboys]

cute retort. short in facts, long in bs.

[baseline bum]

Can't say anything that attacks the greatness of my flag. Don't like it, GTFO

[spursncowboys]

So you can question the basis of our creation of this country and I cannot question your motives?
classic.

[MannyIsGod]

you don't like it bb, then leave. everything we have is from the actions taken, manifest destiny included. How safe of a lib to sit and demonize it, and at the same time, utilize the benefits that you are attacking.
But you love your country and how dare someone question your patriotism.

I know you're retarded so explaining this to you is probably a waste of time but no where did BB attack our rights and freedoms in this country so your comments make no sense.

He attacked the systematic eradication of the native peoples which I'd be shocked if even someone as dense as you thought to defend. Acknowledging how this country has not always evenly extended its rights and beliefs to all as it should is not an attack on those rights.

I would have thought this to be obvious but then again I consider the audience and I don't really find it that shocking when its not.

[MannyIsGod]

So you can question the basis of our creation of this country and I cannot question your motives?
classic.

:lol The basis for the foundation of this country was the elimination of native Americans?

I missed that in the declaration of independence.

[baseline bum]

You're saying the basis for the creation of this country was murdering the redskins?

[spursncowboys]

bb
Gotta sweep our nation's own episode of genocide under the rug, eh sc?


same douche bag
Manifest destiny. Fuck yeah!

MIG: you make no sense. You are assuming while attacking me for assuming. the war with the indians was not in question. the 2 keywords in bold should help you out. come on manny. earn your douchbag title. I guess since you are bb's mom, why don't you explain his answer. was the outcome of genocide manifest destiny? Do you condemn it, meaning that you would not agree with the choices made by our leaders to accomplish it?

[spursncowboys]

:lol The basis for the foundation of this country was the elimination of native Americans?

I missed that in the declaration of independence.
:lol way to go troll. now reread a little dumbass.

[spursncowboys]

You're saying the basis for the creation of this country was murdering the redskins?
:lmao

[baseline bum]

See Manny, SC will always find new and stupid ways to shock you.

[spursncowboys]

See Manny, SC will always find new and stupid ways to shock you.
you just attacked units and units of cav scouts as war criminals. as well as any soldier who was involved. Any politician and settler involved in manifest destiny was apart of genocide. And what I said was shocking???:depressed

[MannyIsGod]

See Manny, SC will always find new and stupid ways to shock you.

Pretty much. I just remembered why I stopped coming into this forum. I'd rather converse with people who aren't so damn stupid.

[spursncowboys]

Pretty much. I just remembered why I stopped coming into this forum. I'd rather converse with people who aren't so damn stupid.
that's hillarious. what is so stupid. the fact that i don't think manifest destiny was bad, or a result of a genocidal war? hearing your half put downs and half nonsense, i would be more than happy to not have to read your shit.

[DMX7]

Thank god most kids who grow up in Texas don't pay attention to history class in school anyway.

[L.I.T]

Manifest Destiny, and it's extension by individuals like Teddy Roosevelt, was the philosophical substantiation for the US incursion into the Philippines.

Various sources peg Filipino deaths from 1899-1902 (the official time frame of the Philippine-American War) from 300,000 to 1.5M.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Thank god most kids who grow up in Texas don't pay attention to history class in school anyway.

good point..:lmao

[spursncowboys]

within a few years of japanese occupation, over a million were killed by the japs.


Manifest Destiny, and it's extension by individuals like Teddy Roosevelt, was the philosophical substantiation for the US incursion into the Philippines.

Various sources peg Filipino deaths from 1899-1902 (the official time frame of the Philippine-American War) from 300,000 to 1.5M.

These numbers take into account those killed by war, malnutrition, and a cholera epidemic that raged during the war
a b Smallman-Raynor 1998
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine-American_War#cite_note-Smallman-Raynor-6

[spursncowboys]

The Philippines has been an ally of the United States since World War II. It supported American policies during the Cold War and participated in the Korean and Vietnam wars. It was a member of the now dissolved SEATO, a group that was intended to serve a role similar to NATO and that included Australia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[52] After the start of the War on Terror, the Philippines was part of the coalition that gave support to the United States in Iraq.[53] The Philippines is currently working with the United States with the intention of ending its domestic insurgency.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines

[ploto]

I am now even more thankful that my kid's AP US History course uses a college textbook.

[Stringer_Bell]

Does anyone really think that our Texas public schools benefit from teaching children about the less savory things in our history? It's better to show them the good things and not the bad things, they need a blueprint for events to role model and respect - not events they need to avoid from happening again. Enlightened students are students that question things, and we certainly don't need any of their smart-ass observations and correlations between past/present events. We as a state, then as a country, must kill their ability to analyze and weigh moral issues with an appreciation for the opportunities they have knowing the full price they cost previous generations - or else we risk failure.

[L.I.T]

I'm not quite certain why you are quoting modern international relations between the Philippines and the United States. Those have no bearing on the turn of the century events that were precipitated by adherence and the expansion of Manifest Destiny.

It is curious though, and this is what Philippine historians have constantly brought up, that malnutrition and disease are brought up to defend those numbers when previously in Philippine history, especially at the end of the 19th century, there were no major epidemics or episodes of countrywide malnutrition on such a massive scale that could be pointed too as precedent. Within that same article that you referenced from Wikipedia, a study in 1908 indicated that countrywide population had decreased by 1 million people. It is quite a coincidence. I am also familiar with that citation and you can already see from the very title (Philippine Insurrection) where the data is likely to fall. Whether you want to argue it was predominately because of war or a combination of other factors the end result is that at a minimum over 1,000,000 Filipinos died under supposedly benevolent American rule in a very short period of time.

And I am well-aware of the Japanese Occupation numbers. In one month, over 100,000 Filipinos were killed in Manila alone: in part because of American shelling of the city and in part because of Japanese atrocities perpetuated on civilians out of anger over how the war went. Again, Japanese Occupation numbers and the current state of Phil-American political relations have little to no bearing on the what occurred at the end of 19th century and early 20th century.

The nature of relations have changed, as has internal perception of the United States - it has been over 100 years. As a result of education policies enacted in 1902 the Philippines quickly became a staunch supporter of the US. A situation that has not changed.

[spursncowboys]

Does anyone really think that our Texas public schools benefit from teaching children about the less savory things in our history? It's better to show them the good things and not the bad things, they need a blueprint for events to role model and respect - not events they need to avoid from happening again. Enlightened students are students that question things, and we certainly don't need any of their smart-ass observations and correlations between past/present events. We as a state, then as a country, must kill their ability to analyze and weigh moral issues with an appreciation for the opportunities they have knowing the full price they cost previous generations - or else we risk failure.

When I was in a history class, the info was already packed. We never got to post ww2. we also were never told the atrocities, until college. Nothing was lost and the short amount of time was not wasted on all the "atrocities". It was a basic review. I also think in american indian discussions, it shouldn't be turned into "we were the bad guys". The indians were fighting and taking each over their land way before europeans got to the continent. i think it is acceptable to display the facts of jackson sending the allie tribes with the tribes we fought. Show the facts of Americans not taking care of certain tribes. Let the students come to their own conclusion. the resources available online now allow kids to find things they couldn't when I was in. This book isn't the only thing now.

[Spurminator]

Just more reason to be actively involved in your kids' education.

[Nbadan]

The conservative socialists in charge....or is that fascists?

_7qckl3W6W4

ABC News Nightline interview with creationist Religious Right fundie Don McLeroy ~ departing Republican member and Chair of the Texas State Board of Education (he lost his re-election to a moderate in the Republican primary earlier this month and his reappointment as Chair of the SBOE has 'ran into trouble'). Nightline details how the fundamentalist right wing agenda is influencing education across the country: "Where ever you live, your student may soon learn from his lessons..."

[Nbadan]

These people don't want to take America back...they want to take it backwards


AUSTIN, Texas — A far-right faction of the Texas State Board of Education succeeded Friday in injecting conservative ideals into social studies, history and economics lessons that will be taught to millions of students for the next decade.

Teachers in Texas will be required to cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state. Curriculum standards also will describe the U.S. government as a "constitutional republic," rather than "democratic," and students will be required to study the decline in value of the U.S. dollar, including the abandonment of the gold standard.

"We have been about conservatism versus liberalism," said Democrat Mavis Knight of Dallas, explaining her vote against the standards. "We have manipulated strands to insert what we want it to be in the document, regardless as to whether or not it's appropriate."

Huff (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/12/texas-education-board-app_n_497440.html)

Can you imagine this at a National level with Palin, Huck, or any of the other wing-nut social conservative darlins in charge?

[spursncowboys]

nbadan. How is that backwards? we did come from judeo christian values. constitutional republic is a better description. we should talk about how we got off the gold standard and the rise and fall of the us dollar.

[Nbadan]

See your making the assumption that America was founded on 'judeo christian values'...while there is some evidence supporting the claim that our founders based the very existence of our nation on a 'supreme being', there is also evidence that our founders were well aware of the outright dangers in the collusion of power between religion and poltics, as well they should have been given that their fore-fathers came to America to escape religious prosecution in their own nations....

[Nbadan]

Relating this back to this asshat....there are national standards in place for teaching all the core subjects in schoosl....TX just doesn't subscribe to them based on the argument of 'more local control', that's the real reason Perry recently turned down $700m in Education stimulus money that could have really helped poor districts in Texas...based in favor of what?

[Stringer_Bell]

Relating this back to this asshat....there are national standards in place for teaching all the core subjects in schoosl....TX just doesn't subscribe to them based on the argument of 'more local control', that's the real reason Perry recently turned down $700m in Education stimulus money that could have really helped poor districts in Texas...based in favor of what?

I think we don't want BIG GOVERNMENT'S money because then we have to teach what they want us to teach. We're just fine without being ambiguous with our history lessons and assuming kids have the initiative and intelligence to seek a better understanding of where our country comes from and how their local community fits into it.

Quit supposing the recent generation of children are smart, they are stupid and must be spoon-fed the answers. They might know how to use computers by the age of 4, but they lack creativity because they spend a lot of time in doors watching shitty cartoons, listening to shitty music, and sometimes they spend time with their shitty parents. If WE (Texas) can at least get through to our public school students that America are the good guys, we might be able to stop them from just giving our country away when they become adults and hold the torch.

[admiralsnackbar]

Quit supposing the recent generation of children are smart, they are stupid and must be spoon-fed the answers.

Pot, meet kettle.

[LnGrrrR]

“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”

I reject the notion that the Founding Fathers did not believe in Xenu. I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find any explicit disavowal of Xenu in the Constitution.

[LnGrrrR]

Other proposed changes to Texas Educational Material, by category:

Earth Science: Proof that Texas is the best state, and everything therein is bigger
Politics: Why Texas is the one state allowed to secede, and why they should
Culinary Arts: Why everything tastes better fried
History: How Texas won the Battle at the Alamo, contrary to popular belief
Philosophy: Talk loudly, carry a big stick, and swing it at anyone who comes near, g*ddamnit!
English: A special section on how Jesus Christ is the Word, and explaining how language is impossible without the love of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ

[spursncowboys]

I reject the notion that the Founding Fathers did not believe in Xenu. I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find any explicit disavowal of Xenu in the Constitution.

I thought your god was the spaghetti monster?

[ploto]

“Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.”

[boutons_deux]

Poor Tommy, the country he founded won't let his bones rest in ex-post-factor peace:


How the DEA Scrubbed Thomas Jefferson's Monticello Poppy Garden from Public Memory

By Jim Hogshire, Feral House
Posted on March 3, 2010, Printed on March 15, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145872/

The following is an excerpt from Jim Hogshire's "Opium for the Masses: Harvesting Nature's Best Pain Medication" (Feral House, 2009).

Thomas Jefferson was a drug criminal. But he managed to escape the terrible sword of justice by dying a century before the DEA was created. In 1987 agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency showed up at Monticello, Jefferson's famous estate.

Jefferson had planted opium poppies in his medicinal garden, and opium poppies are now deemed illegal. Now, the trouble was the folks at the Monticello Foundation, which preserves and maintains the historic site, were discovered flagrantly continuing Jefferson's crimes. The agents were blunt: The poppies had to be immediately uprooted and destroyed or else they were going to start making arrests, and Monticello Foundation personnel would perhaps face lengthy stretches in prison.

The story sounds stupid now, but it scared the hell out of the people at Monticello, who immediately started yanking the forbidden plants. A DEA man noticed the store was selling packets of "Thomas Jefferson's Monticello Poppies." The seeds had to go, too. While poppy seeds might be legal, it is never legal to plant them. Not for any reason.

Employees even gathered the store's souvenir T-shirts -- with silkscreened photos of Monticello poppies on the chest -- and burned them. Nobody told them to do this, but, under the circumstances, no one dared risk the threat.

Jefferson's poppies are gone without a trace now. Nobody said much at the time, nor are they saying much now. Visitors to Monticello don't learn how the Founding Father cultivated poppies for their opium. His personal opium use and poppy cultivation may as well never have happened.

The American War on Drugs started with opium and it continues today. Deception is key to this kind of social control, along with the usual threats of mayhem. Ever since the passage of the Harrison Act made opium America's first "illicit substance" in 1914, propaganda has proven itself most effective in the war on poppies. This has not been done so much by eradicating the poppy plant from the nation's soil as by eradicating the poppy from the nation's mind.

Prosecutions for crimes involving opium or opium poppies are rare. But that has less to do with the frequency of poppy crimes and everything to do with suppressing information about the opium poppy. A public trial might inadvertently publicize forbidden information at odds with the common spin about poppies and opium. This might pique interest in the taboo subject and, worse, undermine faith in the government.

The U.S. government strategy to create and enforce deliberate ignorance about opium, opium poppies, and everything connected with them has proven remarkably effective. The Monticello campaign exemplifies an effective tactic. The poppies were swiftly removed, and sotto voce threats ensured no one would talk about it afterward. Today, visitors to Monticello learn nothing about opium poppy cultivation or why Jefferson cultivated it in his garden.

Disinformation about poppies has been spread far and wide. Some of it is subtle, like when the New York Times talks about people growing "heroin poppies." Some misinformation is so bald-faced as to stun the listener into silence, as when a DEA agent tells a reporter that the process of getting opium from opium poppies is so complex and dangerous that "I don't even think a person with a Ph.D. could do it.

This enforced ignorance reduces the chances of anyone even accidentally discovering the truth about poppies. Poring through back issues of pharmaceutical industry news from Tasmania might yield a mother load of cutting edge poppy science -- from genetically altered poppies that ooze double-strength opium to state-of-the-art machines designed to manufacture "poppy straw concentrate." Tasmania's output meets roughly a third of the world's narcotic requirement. But how many people know that Tasmania is the home of the world's largest and most modern opium industry?

Opium and opium poppy ignorance is augmented by widespread false beliefs, chief among them that it is extremely difficult for opium poppies to grow anywhere in the United States. Opium poppies surely require exotic climates or special climatic conditions, don't they? They're found on remote mountainsides in the Golden Triangle and Afghanistan, where growing them is a secret art known only to a few indigenous people who jealously guard the seeds from hostile competitors.

These beliefs are all widely held, but entirely untrue. Opium poppies, in fact, grow nearly everywhere but the North and South Poles. The second prong of the strategy is the copious propaganda that demonizes opium, opium poppies and opiates. At times this demonization has been brazenly racist, catering to the xenophobic American mind at the beginning of the twentieth century. Later propaganda linked opium with the despised German "Hun" who ate babies and (as was reported) had been mixing narcotics into children's candy and women's face powder in a diabolical plot to weaken the nation from the inside. Later, Germans were replaced by communists, who also shipped narcotics to America's youth to weaken and enslave us. This was the authoritative word from Harry Anslinger, the infamous first Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.

Another example of false history is the mythical "soldier's disease" or "army disease" that supposedly plagued the land after the Civil War. According to the story, opium and morphine were used so extensively during the war as a painkiller for wounded soldiers (especially amputees) that the inevitable result was opium and morphine addiction. As a result, crowds of broken-down men roamed the countryside, ramming themselves full of holes with their crude syringes, having been turned into dope slaves by the good intentions of doctors.

This perfect example of anti-drug propaganda sounds plausible enough that few ever question it. And it has endured long after researchers discovered that this mythical legend was purely invention.

There is no documentation of any mass opiate addiction after the Civil War. The term "soldier's disease" or its variants did not appear in literature until decades later. Yet the story fits the officially approved stereotype by portraying opium and morphine as so powerful and addictive that they could rob anyone's soul.

If you knew that opium poppies do not grow in the U.S., you would not recognize an opium poppy even if you were staring directly at it. So, the idea of making opium tea from a bunch of dried decorative flowers purchased at K-Mart is ridiculous -- absurd, really. If it were that easy, wouldn't everyone be doing it?

Perhaps. But the establishment prefers to not test it. The idea of an individual having control over one's own life, especially regarding pain relief, is far too democratic to be embraced by tyrants.

The government and its allies in the narco-military complex have gone to great lengths to set things up as they are, and not allow a shift in control would affect licit or illicit sales of narcotics, poppy seeds, and any products derived from Papaver somniferum. In a market the size of America, nothing is too insignificant to generate huge sums of money. And the opium poppy is hardly insignificant.

Jim Hogshire is the author of many books, including most recently, "Opium for the Masses: Harvesting Nature's Best Pain Medication"; (Feral House, 2009).
© 2010 Feral House All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/145872/

======

The War on Drugs is a multi-billion dollar business, creating make work, salaries, careers, and pensions for 1000s of govt and contractors' employees.

Wal-mart just fired a 5-year-employee with brain cancer for testing positive for legally obtained medical weed.

[boutons_deux]

"there are national standards in place for teaching all the core subjects in schoosl."

There are new standards proposed which look excellent to me (reading and composition in 5th grade? holy shit!), but they will be opposed and ridiculed by the no-nothing, ignorant Repugs intent of dumbing down America to be fodder for corporate predations.

[TeyshaBlue]

"there are national standards in place for teaching all the core subjects in schoosl."

There are new standards proposed which look excellent to me (reading and composition in 5th grade? holy shit!)....

Pssst. Those standards already exist....for Texas 3rd graders.

"§110.14. English Language Arts and Reading, Grade 3, Beginning with School Year 2009-2010.
(a) Introduction.
(1) The English Language Arts and Reading Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) are organized into the following strands: Reading, where students read and understand a wide variety of literary and informational texts; Writing, where students compose a variety of written texts with a clear controlling idea, coherent organization, and sufficient detail; Research, where students are expected to know how to locate a range of relevant sources and evaluate, synthesize, and present ideas and information; Listening and Speaking, where students listen and respond to the ideas of others while contributing their own ideas in conversations and in groups; and Oral and Written Conventions, where students learn how to use the oral and written conventions of the English language in speaking and writing. The standards are cumulative--students will continue to address earlier standards as needed while they attend to standards for their grade. In third grade, students will engage in activities that build on their prior knowledge and skills in order to strengthen their reading, writing, and oral language skills. Students should read and write on a daily basis."

[rjv]

"Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs..."

I like how the myth of our country teaches us pilgrims came to this land to escape religious persecution, then the country ends up being run by Christian beliefs...what just happened to being cool with each other because it's natural to be nice to each other? Fucking stupid "conservatives" wouldn't know what conservative meant if it bit them in ass.

amen to that brother (no pun intended)

[rjv]

pass:
bc and ad will be used again to describe the time periods (I didn't know they didn't use them anymore)


fail:
naming the two hispanic medal of honor recipients because they were hispanic.


benavidez deserved it. the man saved several lives, took out several VC and obtained important information all while holding in his own intestines. who cares if some biggots think it is too much too mention a genuine texas war hero. they sure as hell had no problem with audie murphy.

[rjv]

and weren't "conservatives" opposed to post-modernism? when did they join the parade?

[boutons_deux]

TX "Christian " and conservative extremists want to indoctrinate, not educate. Fuck every one them to hell.

[RandomGuy]

What's most appalling is that there is a state apparatus certain groups seek to control because of its influence in shaping individual thought. It's not education, but rather a tool of indoctrination. To which agenda will the factory school fine tune its product?

These people are some real whack jobs who are attempting to do exactly this, and have stated it rather openly, but not always directly in public.

One of them actually got herself in a bit of trouble by directly accusing Obama of consulting "with the terrorists" or "with AlQaeda" before the election. She genuinely seems to believe in the "muslim secret agent" myth about Obama.

[RandomGuy]

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108711

by the by

(thread in which one of these ass-hats essentially accused Obama of being a terrorist)

[TeyshaBlue]

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108711

by the by

(thread in which one of these ass-hats essentially accused Obama of being a terrorist)

It figures it would've been Dunbar. She's the fucking Fred Phelps of education.

[LnGrrrR]

I thought your god was the spaghetti monster?

Touche! :toast :lol

I can't blame the Founding Fathers for believing in Xenu though... they didn't have all the evidence back then that we have today which points overwhelmingly to the existence of the one true Flying Spaghetti Monster. :)

May his noodly appendages bless you!

[baseline bum]

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108711

by the by

(thread in which one of these ass-hats essentially accused Obama of being a terrorist)

LOL, didn't even have to open the link to know it was Dunbar's retarded revisionist bumpkin ass.

[Wild Cobra]

Three pages long already...

I didn't read much of this, but I saw some things I know are wrong.

First of all, anyone see the transcript saying she wants to ban Jefferson?

I didn't think so. I'll bet it's a misconstrued account of events.

There have been stories about the Texas Text Book ordeal for about a week now. What I see is that liberals are no longer controlling the agenda alone, and now their safe haven for indoctrination of students is threatened. If someone wants to change my opinion of this, then how about some transcripts of discussion on a topic, instead of cherry picked phrases and words.

[baseline bum]

Wow, WC bending over backwards to give the benefit of the doubt to a fucking retarded "Obama is a muslim" wingnut conspiracy theorist while screaming conspiracy against everyone else. Who would have ever guessed?

[baseline bum]

Three pages long already...

I didn't read much of this, but I saw some things I know are wrong.

First of all, anyone see the transcript saying she wants to ban Jefferson?

I didn't think so. I'll bet it's a misconstrued account of events.

There have been stories about the Texas Text Book ordeal for about a week now. What I see is that liberals are no longer controlling the agenda alone, and now their safe haven for indoctrination of students is threatened. If someone wants to change my opinion of this, then how about some transcripts of discussion on a topic, instead of cherry picked phrases and words.

Nice.

[Stringer_Bell]

Three pages long already...

I didn't read much of this, but I saw some things I know are wrong.

First of all, anyone see the transcript saying she wants to ban Jefferson?

I didn't think so. I'll bet it's a misconstrued account of events.

There have been stories about the Texas Text Book ordeal for about a week now. What I see is that liberals are no longer controlling the agenda alone, and now their safe haven for indoctrination of students is threatened. If someone wants to change my opinion of this, then how about some transcripts of discussion on a topic, instead of cherry picked phrases and words.

Here you go, friend! http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108711

We don't need transcripts from meetings to know this bitch is crazy. It's like The Onion but RL.

[baseline bum]

He won't read much of that either, but will still tell us what he sees.

[spursncowboys]

benavidez deserved it. the man saved several lives, took out several VC and obtained important information all while holding in his own intestines. who cares if some biggots think it is too much too mention a genuine texas war hero. they sure as hell had no problem with audie murphy.

That's not the point. Giving him special credit because he is hispanic makes those people bigots. Benavidez was a hero and has a great story, however his great sacrifice shouldn't be marginalized as a hispanic MOH. He was an American soldier. Fuck you for molesting the race card when someone doesn't agree with you.

[DJ Mbenga]

as a history major this makes me sad to read. how pathetic. lmao texas

[spursncowboys]

Touche! :toast :lol

I can't blame the Founding Fathers for believing in Xenu though... they didn't have all the evidence back then that we have today which points overwhelmingly to the existence of the one true Flying Spaghetti Monster. :)

May his noodly appendages bless you!

:lol that's right, he was flying. didn't mean to be blasphemous.

[Winehole23]

Benavidez was a hero and has a great story, however his great sacrifice shouldn't be marginalized as a hispanic MOH.But SnC, you're the one who marginalized Benavides as a *hispanic MOH recipient* in the first place.


fail:
naming the two hispanic medal of honor recipients because they were hispanic. Who's been *molesting* the race card just because he disagreed?

If you're honest, you pretty much have to admit you did it too, before the poster you criticized for it.

[spursncowboys]

But SnC, you're the one who marginalized Benavides as a *hispanic MOH recipient* in the first place.

Who's been *molesting* the race card just because he disagreed?

If you're honest, you pretty much have to admit you did it too, before the poster you criticized for it.

Are MOH winners so common we have to restrict who rates a mention in the state textbooks? :lol

I wasn't apart of the board for deciding what gets in, or doesn't get in the text books.

When the board voted not to highlight the two hispanic MOH recipients because they were hispanic, she quit. I personally think there should be a summary of every MOH person.

[Wild Cobra]

Nice.
I didn't read much of this thread. That doesn't mean I didn't hear other aspects of the story itself.

Are we clear now?

[Wild Cobra]

Here you go, friend! http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108711

We don't need transcripts from meetings to know this bitch is crazy. It's like The Onion but RL.
I'm don't have a claim about her. The book ordeal itself has been a sore point for years.

[Winehole23]

When the board voted not to highlight the two hispanic MOH recipients because they were hispanic, she quit.Made a stand against racially motivated exclusion. Brava.

I don't think Mary Helen Berlanga *quit* though. She just left the meeting.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6909202.html


I personally think there should be a summary of every MOH person.Then presumably you would agree with Berlanga's bid to include Benavidez, since all 70 Texas CMOH recipients (http://www.homeofheroes.com/moh/states/tx.html) are deserving of a blurb.

But maybe you more line up with David Bradley's take:


“We are doing it by skin color, and I object to that.”Race neutrality apparently dictates the well-nigh automatic exclusion of minorities on the ground that their inclusion under the disclosed circumstances would only be patronizing.

Indeed, any attempt at all to repair racial (in)equites (perceived or actual) is colorably racist and demeaning to those receiving the remedy.

A very wily tack for so-called conservatives: all the anti-racists are presumptively racist themselves, and those they accuse are the last real victims of racism... content though they seem to be to see actual minorities used more or less as props in, yet again, the whole psychodrama about their own *conservative, compassionate* self-exaltation, this time as virtuous, persecuted victims of insane,anti-racist pagans and swarthy preachers of social justice. .

[Winehole23]

Boo effing hoo.

[SouthernFried]

Nice to hear someone's starting to attack what's been a 50 yr leftist agenda in the school systems, not just in Texas, but around the country. The leftist agenda in our schools has created a level of ignorance in this country that's a national disgrace.

I can only hope this trend continues and catches on. The louder the left screams that its agenda is not being taught, and people are gonna become more ignorant because of it...the more I will know the exact opposite is happening.

Scream on brothers.

[Winehole23]

McLeroy got upset in the primary by a moderate (R) and Cynthia Dunbar will soon ride off into the sunset.

Scream on brother.

[InRareForm]

Nice to hear someone's starting to attack what's been a 50 yr leftist agenda in the school systems, not just in Texas, but around the country. The leftist agenda in our schools has created a level of ignorance in this country that's a national disgrace.

I can only hope this trend continues and catches on. The louder the left screams that its agenda is not being taught, and people are gonna become more ignorant because of it...the more I will know the exact opposite is happening.

Scream on brothers.

lol. :lol :rolleyes

[baseline bum]

Nice to hear someone's starting to attack what's been a 50 yr leftist agenda in the school systems, not just in Texas, but around the country.



:rollin

It's pretty clear you didn't ever take a history class at a Texas public high school or jr high.

[RandomGuy]

Nice to hear someone's starting to attack what's been a 50 yr leftist agenda in the school systems, not just in Texas, but around the country. The leftist agenda in our schools has created a level of ignorance in this country that's a national disgrace.

I can only hope this trend continues and catches on. The louder the left screams that its agenda is not being taught, and people are gonna become more ignorant because of it...the more I will know the exact opposite is happening.

Scream on brothers.

So a "rightist" agenda, using "creation" science is the answer to curing our scientific ignorance?

:lmao

[RandomGuy]

I didn't read much of this thread. That doesn't mean I didn't hear other aspects of the story itself.

Are we clear now?

Translation:

"I read/heard something about this through the heavily filtered news that I prefer."

[George Gervin's Afro]

Nice to hear someone's starting to attack what's been a 50 yr leftist agenda in the school systems, not just in Texas, but around the country. The leftist agenda in our schools has created a level of ignorance in this country that's a national disgrace.

I can only hope this trend continues and catches on. The louder the left screams that its agenda is not being taught, and people are gonna become more ignorant because of it...the more I will know the exact opposite is happening.

Scream on brothers.

Dems need the people to be stupid to vote for them..

Sincerely,

Those who believed in the Death Panels

[rjv]

That's not the point. Giving him special credit because he is hispanic makes those people bigots. Benavidez was a hero and has a great story, however his great sacrifice shouldn't be marginalized as a hispanic MOH. He was an American soldier. Fuck you for molesting the race card when someone doesn't agree with you.

are you suggesting that no hispanics should ever be mentioned because they are hispanic and the assumption would be that they are being marginalized? sort of a catch 22 isn't that?

aude murphy was a war hero from WW II. benavides from vietnam. one happens to be anglo and the other hispanic. they are both congressional of medal recipients. race does not matter. (unless of course some idiot keeps making racist inferences and ironically claims that it is everyone else who is pulling the race card.)

[rjv]

Nice to hear someone's starting to attack what's been a 50 yr leftist agenda in the school systems, not just in Texas, but around the country. The leftist agenda in our schools has created a level of ignorance in this country that's a national disgrace.

I can only hope this trend continues and catches on. The louder the left screams that its agenda is not being taught, and people are gonna become more ignorant because of it...the more I will know the exact opposite is happening.

Scream on brothers.

the new postmodernist soliloquy.

[boutons_deux]

Southern Friend is exposing himself to be as silly as WC and Yoni.

Amazing.

Keep it up

HIGHLY ENTERTAINING! :lol

I love this forum. My travels and living abroad gave me a broad perspective, but encountering ignorant, ideological, duped dumbfucks parroting their thought-makers' words up close here is very educational.

[mogrovejo]

The left and the right never has a problem with controlling the public educational curriculum as long as they're the ones doing it. As curriculum need to be constructed and neutrality is impossible to attain, the only remedy is to allow parents, not politicians, to adopt the curriculum they deem as more appropriate. Which means that politicians and bureaucrats should be shipped out of the process.

[Wild Cobra]

Southern Friend is exposing himself to be as silly as WC and Yoni.

Amazing.

Keep it up

HIGHLY ENTERTAINING! :lol

Too bad you fail to understand what is important.

[Spurminator]

Nice to hear someone's starting to attack what's been a 50 yr leftist agenda in the school systems, not just in Texas, but around the country. The leftist agenda in our schools has created a level of ignorance in this country that's a national disgrace.

I can only hope this trend continues and catches on. The louder the left screams that its agenda is not being taught, and people are gonna become more ignorant because of it...the more I will know the exact opposite is happening.

Scream on brothers.


Keep your politics out of the schoolroom, asshole.

[Wild Cobra]

Keep your politics out of the schoolroom, asshole.
Do you say the same to the left?

[boutons_deux]

"Too bad you fail to understand what is important."

weasal words.

Share with us failures what IS important (to your blind ideology). My laugh reflex is primed. :lol

[Spurminator]

Do you say the same to the left?

Of course I'd say the same thing to the left. Now show me someone bemoaning the vast 50-year Right-Wing conspiracy that has dominated public school curriculum and insisting that History textbooks be rewritten to include Liberal talking points, I'll be happy to give them a piece of my mind as well.

I don't want my kids' textbooks to read like a transcript of Hannity and Colmes.

[Stringer_Bell]

As an anti-theist, I am offended by prayer in schools. What makes you "conservatives" think you're values are any better than those Middle Eastern schools where they indoctrinate students from early ages? They teach Jihad, you teach the End of Days...you're both crazy and the only difference is money. You're kids will still have it easier than the Middle Easterners and still have sex outside of marriage and still drink alcohol and get into fights...you're not fooling anybody with your religion so gtfo of public school!

I DON'T WANT THE KIDS TO THINK A SODA TAX IS NORMAL!

[mogrovejo]

Of course I'd say the same thing to the left. Now show me someone bemoaning the vast 50-year Right-Wing conspiracy that has dominated public school curriculum and insisting that History textbooks be rewritten to include Liberal talking points, I'll be happy to give them a piece of my mind as well.

I don't want my kids' textbooks to read like a transcript of Hannity and Colmes.

They read like a NYT transcript. The reason why the left haven't complained so far is because they haven't had reasons to complain. Now that they do, they're complaining - case in point, you.

[baseline bum]

They read like a NYT transcript. The reason why the left haven't complained so far is because they haven't had reasons to complain. Now that they do, they're complaining - case in point, you.

:lmao

What an ignorant ass who doesn't know shit about American public school education.

[RandomGuy]

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15710558

http://media.economist.com/images/jpg/JeffersonLarge.jpg


THE good news is that more Texans are paying attention to social-studies lessons than ever before. The bad news is that they suddenly have cause. On March 12th, the state board of education voted for a series of changes to the state's history and social-sciences curricula. The changes look small enough—a word here and there, a new name included, maybe a different way of phrasing an issue. But the overall effect, if the changes are approved in May, will to be to yank public education to the right.

The board alluded to the controversial amendments in a polite press release: "All those who died at the Alamo will be discussed in seventh grade Texas history classes. Hip hop will not be part of the official curriculum standards." The most dramatic change is that Thomas Jefferson has gotten the boot. The conservatives on the board deemed him to be a suspiciously secular figure. The new guidelines would pay more fond attention to their favoured presidents, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. Phyllis Schlafly and the National Rifle Association are in. So are the Black Panthers.

Some of the oddest changes concern economics. Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek will join Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, and Karl Marx. And the board decided that references to "capitalism" and the "free market" should be changed to say "free enterprise", because capitalism has a bad reputation at the moment. That decision is almost inexplicable. Capitalism has been through a rough patch, but surely the term itself is no more inflammatory than free enterprise.

For critics, this is a blatant attempt to indoctrinate children. At the New York Times, an economics blogger concluded that based on his number of scholarly citations, Hayek was the beneficiary of an "ideological subsidy". The board's conservatives counter that their work is merely a corrective to academia's liberal bent. At the national level, some are concerned about the impact on other states. Texas is such a big textbook market that publishers typically accommodate it.

It is quite clear how this happened. There are 15 people on the board, ten Republicans and five Democrats. But more important is that among the ten Republicans are seven fierce conservatives, along with three who are merely staunch. This is no coincidence. Over the years Republicans have worked to stack the deck with social conservatives. The school board seats are, for the most part, small-money races. A candidate could win with just a few thousand dollars. Yet the board has some power, as last week's vote showed, and a determinedly ideological bloc can organise accordingly. To the victor go the spoils, in other words. It is a clever bit of political strategy, and Democrats could do it too if they put their mind to it.

In the meantime, even Texas Republicans are growing weary of the board's antics. Before the social-studies fracas, there was a separate and even more pitched debate over whether creationism should be taught alongside evolution in science classes. The ringleader of that effort was the board's chairman, Don McLeroy. On March 2nd he was defeated in a Republican primary. His opponent, Tom Ratliff, is conservative too. But on his campaign website Mr Ratliff parsed some differences between himself and Mr McLeroy: "I believe God created the Heavens and the Earth millions and millions of years ago. I do not believe, as my opponent does, that the Earth is a mere few thousand years old, nor do I believe, as my opponent does, that dinosaurs and mankind lived at the same time." The Texas board may be evolving itself.

[Spurminator]

They read like a NYT transcript.

Examples?

[RandomGuy]

Seems to me this isn't a matter of "fighting a long standing leftist slant" as merely a rather blatant attempt to instill a rightist one.

If you wan to fight a perceived slant either way, the best way to go is neutral, and that isn't what the wackos on this board are trying to do, and everybody knows it.

[RandomGuy]

Examples?

Another thing that everybody knows, but I will come out and say is that the people who seem to bitch the loudest about "leftist slants" are the least likely to have actually read a textbook in question themselves, and instead have let others do their thinking for them to tell them what to be outraged about.

I give the odds of you getting a specific answer to your request as very very very remote.

[Spurminator]

Problem is, for conservatives who have been trained on ten years of cable news and talk radio, neutrality = the lack of conservative viewpoint = liberal bias.

Because everything is about viewpoints. "Fair and balanced" means you let two pundits argue talking points back and forth until they're foaming at the mouth. I don't want that shit spilling into textbooks.

[Winehole23]

Examples?mogrovejo demands many answers, but seldom condescends to answer any question himself.

He comes and goes from this forum like a great bird, dropping his weighty nominations of wisdom upon us disdainfully, from about a mile up.

[RandomGuy]

Problem is, for conservatives who have been trained on ten years of cable news and talk radio, neutrality = the lack of conservative viewpoint = liberal bias.

Because everything is about viewpoints. "Fair and balanced" means you let two pundits argue talking points back and forth until they're foaming at the mouth. I don't want that shit spilling into textbooks.

x1000

I would add my well-worn complaint that many who consider themselves "conservative" seem to lack critical thinking skills, and all the talk radio blather is contributing to that.

[FromWayDowntown]

Its going to be a damned shame that the next generation of Texans will be mostly pre-programmed ideologues who have an attenuated sense of history as the rest of the world knows it.

I agree with Spurminator -- anyone who wishes to push a political agenda in setting a school curriculum (no matter the direction from which that agenda might come) should be doing something other than setting school curricula.

I'll go one step further: I think that anyone who wishes to push a political agenda in public schools is an enemy of education.

Why on Earth this State requires political elections to decide who will make these sorts of decisions is beyond me. I'm left to |think that we somehow value political power more than the education of our children.

[coyotes_geek]

Why on Earth this State requires political elections to decide who will make these sorts of decisions is beyond me.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with pretty much everything you said. And I also agree that the whole election aspect to the SBOE leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But what's the alternative? Letting those decisions get made by a board that Rick Perry gets to appoint?

[rjv]

Don't get me wrong, I agree with pretty much everything you said. And I also agree that the whole election aspect to the SBOE leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But what's the alternative? Letting those decisions get made by a board that Rick Perry gets to appoint

that would be one scary textbook.

i think we all have to keep in mind as well that teachers can do alot with a textbook. they can add to what is missing or comment on what has been added and many do and many do not. in other words, as relevant as the material is those presenting it (and even the students themselves and what they have been taught at home). it is not as if the learning process starts or ends with the texts.

[baseline bum]

that would be one scary textbook.

i think we all have to keep in mind as well that teachers can do alot with a textbook. they can add to what is missing or comment on what has been added and many do and many do not. in other words, as relevant as the material is those presenting it (and even the students themselves and what they have been taught at home). it is not as if the learning process starts or ends with the texts.

It was my experience in HS that virtually all of the teachers followed the textbooks pretty rigidly, except in AP classes. I don't think there's that level of talent teaching most high school classes. HS was so worthless in comparison to college IMO, with the exception of the AP classes again.

[rjv]

It was my experience in HS that virtually all of the teachers followed the textbooks pretty rigidly, except in AP classes. I don't think there's that level of talent teaching most high school classes. HS was so worthless in comparison to college IMO, with the exception of the AP classes again.

it may depend on the school i'm sure. i went to a private school so there were far more liberties afforded there. but i do know teachers who certainly add their own dynamic to the process.

and as i mentioned, parents can certainly add to the process. i know i never took the presentation of the texas revolution the way it was given in the textbooks, but i had a father who was from mexico and knew his mexican history like the back of his hand.

[coyotes_geek]

It was my experience in HS that virtually all of the teachers followed the textbooks pretty rigidly, except in AP classes. I don't think there's that level of talent teaching most high school classes. HS was so worthless in comparison to college IMO, with the exception of the AP classes again.

I guess I was lucky in that I did get a few teachers who would challenge the students to think beyond the text. But for the most part, you're right, it was simply teaching the textbook.

[Spurminator]

I had some classes that taught the textbooks verbatim, and some where we rarely even opened the textbook. All depends on the teacher in most cases.

[ploto]

View at 4:20.

http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=267536

[ploto]

What I have begun to wonder is what kind of professors of history will be willing to put their names as authors of these textbooks. The publishers will print whatever the state wants, but some historian has to put his name and reputation on the line to author these books.

Then, again, I have seen unbelievably awful "textbooks" (and I use that term generously) that are printed for home schoolers to purchase that teach all kinds of crazy stuff and that a public school would never accept as a suitable textbook.

[coyotes_geek]

that would be one scary textbook.

No kidding.

[LnGrrrR]

:lol that's right, he was flying. didn't mean to be blasphemous.

It's ok SnC, the FSM is forgiving. :lol

[FromWayDowntown]

Don't get me wrong, I agree with pretty much everything you said. And I also agree that the whole election aspect to the SBOE leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But what's the alternative? Letting those decisions get made by a board that Rick Perry gets to appoint?

I haven't taken the time to consider any and all alternatives and my lament is not meant to offer an alternative.

[Spurminator]

In a non-existant perfect world the board would be made up of scholars who do not align themselves with a specific ideology or party. But that's how the Commies would steal power.

[Wild Cobra]

In a non-existant perfect world the board would be made up of scholars who do not align themselves with a specific ideology or party. But that's how the Commies would steal power.
There could be an argument made that they already have.

[Winehole23]

Make it, then.

[Spurminator]

But before you do that, I'd like to hear what's so liberal about the history books right now.

[FromWayDowntown]

But before you do that, I'd like to hear what's so liberal about the history books right now.

They praise Thomas Jefferson!

[PixelPusher]

They praise Thomas Jefferson!

We'll have to redact the Declaration of Independence and confiscate all the nickels.

[Nbadan]

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/comics/this_modern_world/2010/03/22/this_modern_world/story.jpg

[DMX7]

7 Evangelical Creationists on this board? That's just stupid.

[DarkReign]

7 Evangelical Creationists on this board? That's just Texas.

FIFY

I realize Michigan has its own stereotypes to overcome, but Texas has its own as well.

[rjv]

FIFY

I realize Michigan has its own stereotypes to overcome, but Texas has its own as well.

better smile when you say that yankee !

[Shastafarian]

Next thing you know they'll be teaching our children habeas corpus ISN'T in the Constitution.

[TeyshaBlue]

7 Evangelical Creationists on this board? That's just stupid.

It's insane but hopefully, the tide is turning somewhat.

[TeyshaBlue]

lol @ nbadan and This Modern Strawman. :lmao

[boutons_deux]

Outside Texas, alarm over textbook changes

latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-texas-textbooks23-2010mar23,0,821035.story

latimes.com


The state's Board of Education votes for conservative new social studies standards, raising concern that students nationwide could be forced to learn from the same books.

By Richard Fausset

5:47 PM PDT, March 22, 2010

Reporting from Atlanta


When Texas' conservative-leaning Board of Education voted for new social studies standards this month, parents, teachers and lawmakers far beyond the Lone Star state -- particularly the liberal ones -- took notice.

With the changes, Texas' curriculum is likely to de-emphasize the concept in U.S. history of separating church and state, and the influence of Thomas Jefferson on 18th century world history. It would also cast a positive light on conservatives, such as Phyllis Schlafly and the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

Concerned observers have warned that those ideas could seep into textbooks throughout the country, because Texas is one of the nation's largest textbook buyers. In California last week, state Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) announced that he was working out the details of legislation that would inoculate California students from the Texas version of history.

"While some Texas politicians may want to set their educational standards back 50 years, California should not be subject to their backward curriculum changes," he said.

But it is far from clear that non-Texans will be subjected to the proposed changes, once they are finalized, as expected, in May. Though none of the three major K-12 textbook publishers -- Pearson Education Inc., Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and McGraw-Hill -- would comment for this article, observers of the $8-billion industry offered differing views on the likelihood that Texas could wield such influence beyond its borders -- in part because the textbook business, like American history itself, is a fluid affair influenced by commerce, culture, legislation and technology.

Texas and California are not just the two largest textbook markets in the nation. They are also among 20 states that industry insiders refer to as "adoption" states, meaning that they choose which textbooks can be used statewide. The remaining states let local schools and districts essentially choose whatever books they want, as long as the students who read them meet state-mandated standards.

Many states did not adopt such standards until they were compelled to by the 1994 Improving America's Schools Act, a major plank of President Clinton's education reform effort.

Before 1994, many schools bought largely uniform "national editions" of textbooks, said Jay Diskey, executive director of the school division for the Assn. of American Publishers. Back then, he acknowledged, big states such as California, New York and Texas were able to muscle in extra pages in national textbooks on, say, the Gold Rush or the Battle of the Alamo.

But since then, Diskey argued, publishers have grown accustomed to regularly printing different textbooks to conform to different states' needs. The new Texas standards, he said, won't change that.

"It's gotten to be an exaggeration, if not an urban legend, about how curriculum in Texas automatically hops state lines," he said.

Diskey also noted that the computerization of the publishing industry has made it possible to swap pages and chapters in textbooks to meet differing expectations.

Publishers may become even more nimble as digital publishing becomes more widespread, and as educators move closer to the e-book model promised by the iPad and the Kindle.

"It's already happening in the college textbook market," said Laura Dawson, a New York-based consultant to the publishing industry. "Professors can put together what would amount to a mash-up, where they can mix and match content to create a custom book just for their class. I definitely see that trickling down."

Critics of the current system argue that textbook manufacturers don't so much offer variety as they do texts crammed with every special request from around the country -- creating books that are often unwieldy and unreadable.

They also point to forces that may be limiting the variety of textbooks on the market. One is the consolidation of the textbook industry. Ten or 15 years ago, there were more than a dozen major players cranking out schoolbooks; now the three largest companies are responsible for about 80% of the core K-12 textbook market, Diskey said.

Another factor that could limit textbook variety nationwide is the California budget crisis.

California has traditionally served as the liberal and multicultural yin to the Texas yang in the industry. But in July, the Legislature suspended, until 2013, the adoption of new educational materials. That gave cash-strapped districts a break from having to buy updated textbooks.

"That means that California right now is of much less importance to publishers making decisions about content," said Gilbert Sewall, director of the American Textbook Council, a research center.

richard.fausset@ latimes.com

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

============

So maybe TX's "Christian" ignorance and ant-science prejudice, and Vast Right Wing Conspiracy shit will not infect and degrade students outside of TX.

[Winehole23]

FIFY

I realize Michigan has its own stereotypes to overcome, but Texas has its own as well.The stereotypes contain, ah, a kernel of truth, perhaps.

[Marcus Bryant]

Its going to be a damned shame that the next generation of Texans will be mostly pre-programmed ideologues who have an attenuated sense of history as the rest of the world knows it.


That differs from the status quo in these United States how, exactly? So the deck chairs on American public education have been arranged in a manner pleasing to Pat Robertson. Grand. It's not like the pedagogy that was there before has been fundamentally altered. Students are still trained like dogs to obey state and employer and are fed a watery Alpo-esque instructional diet, which much like Alpo itself looks like dogshit. Americans have been turned out of these factory schools for decades as "pre-programmed ideologues." We only become vaguely aware of this when something over the top such as this recent historical revision hits the news.

[PixelPusher]

Is it too late for the Texas School Board to give a late scratch to John Adams as well?



http://open.salon.com/blog/paul_j_orourke/2010/03/24/news_pres_signs_h-care_insurance_mandate-212_years_ago

In July, 1798, Congress passed, and President John Adams signed into law “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen,” authorizing the creation of a marine hospital service, and mandating privately employed sailors to purchase healthcare insurance.

This legislation also created America’s first payroll tax, as a ship’s owner was required to deduct 20 cents from each sailor’s monthly pay and forward those receipts to the service, which in turn provided injured sailors hospital care. Failure to pay or account properly was discouraged by requiring a law violating owner or ship's captain to pay a 100 dollar fine.

[Wild Cobra]

Is it too late for the Texas School Board to give a late scratch to John Adams as well?

Too bad that like the democrats in congress, you don't know how to read.


and shall pay to the said collector, at the rate of twenty cents per month for every seaman so employed; which sum he is hereby authorized to retain out of the wages of such seamen.
It is authorized that the ship owners pay the sailors less. Not mandated.

[Nbadan]

The board is to vote on a sweeping purge of alleged liberal bias in Texas school textbooks in favour of what Dunbar says really matters: a belief in America as a nation chosen by God as a beacon to the world, and free enterprise as the cornerstone of liberty and democracy.+


Those corrections have prompted a blizzard of accusations of rewriting history and indoctrinating children by promoting rightwing views on religion, economics and guns while diminishing the science of evolution, the civil rights movement and the horrors of slavery.

The new curriculum asserts that "the right to keep and bear arms" is an important element of a democratic society. Study of Sir Isaac Newton is dropped in favour of examining scientific advances through military technology.

The education board has dropped references to the slave trade in favour of calling it the more innocuous "Atlantic triangular trade", and recasts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as driven by Islamic fundamentalism.

Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history)

Texas doesn't have more students than California but they waste money (TAX PAYER MONEY) simply to buy influence over textbooks. As the article points out the Texas school-board has been overrun with fundies.

[Stringer_Bell]

Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history)

Texas doesn't have more students than California but they waste money (TAX PAYER MONEY) simply to buy influence over textbooks. As the article points out the Texas school-board has been overrun with fundies.

I like it when people complain that God isn't at the center of education and government, then complain about Islamic fundementalism as if calling for the US military to be full of "God's soldiers" and our classrooms full of "God's teachings" isn't the least bit odd.

People are funny. :lol

[ChumpDumper]

Too bad that like the democrats in congress, you don't know how to read.


It is authorized that the ship owners pay the sailors less. Not mandated.WC, there was a fine if one didn't pay or account properly.

How is that not a mandate?

[RandomGuy]

Too bad that like the democrats in congress, you don't know how to read.


It is authorized that the ship owners pay the sailors less. Not mandated.

Would you like fries with that reading comprehension fail?


"authorized" when it comes to the law generally authorizes and requires the executive to create some agency.

But when you start seeing the word "shall" that is the definition of a mandatory requirement.

You shall read and understand the law before talking out your ass again.

[RandomGuy]

That from and after the first day of September next, the master or owner of every ship

or vessel of the United States, arriving from a foreign port into any

port of the United States, shall, before such ship or vessel shall be

admitted to an entry, render to the collector a true account of the

number of seamen, that shall have been employed on board such vessel

since she was last entered at any port in the United States,-and shall

pay to the said collector, at the rate of twenty cents per month for every

seaman so employed; which sum he is hereby authorized to retain out

of the wages of such seamen.

You shall be required to fully understand the law before posting more examples of how you suck at reading comprehension.

[Wild Cobra]

Random, you are such an idiot. I already read the quoted material. Misunderstand "authorized" as you wish. I simply don't care about your education, or should I say lack of.

[Winehole23]

WC, you just don't know when you've been beat.

It's ok to be wrong every now and then. Insisting you're right all the time that's the damn foolishness you need less of.

[RandomGuy]

Random, you are such an idiot. I already read the quoted material. Misunderstand "authorized" as you wish. I simply don't care about your education, or should I say lack of.

Yeah, I could have been nicer. I will try to work on that.

I have no doubt you read it.

I do highly doubt that you understood the finer points of what you read.

The payments were mandatory of anyone who wanted to dock their ships.

You are right in the most absolute sense that the ship owners were not required to pay their sailors the same amount as before the levy and the levy itself,
BUT
Do you think that the ship owners absorbed the costs of that levy any more than modern employers do for FICA taxes?

The levy made less money available to pay sailors. Paying them less would not be entirely mandatory, but that was the practical effect.

[sabar]

Let's face it, there are 2 kinds of students:

1. The smart kids. They will go ask their parents, teachers, go to the library, or browse the web to learn more about stuff in school. They know of the material in school, but they will not be indoctrinated to their slant because of their inquisitive nature. They will take AP classes and eventually have a real education though good teachers, parents, and their own pursuit of the truth.

2. Everyone else. They will forget everything they half-learned not even a year removed from the material. They were indoctrinated to the material, but they will never remember it. They will either become indoctrinated again later as adults through political media or eventually turn into a smart person and find out whats what on their own.

In the end, the standards don't matter. Just think back to public school. How many adults do you know that actually get their talking points from what they learned in class? Fact is, they are either truly educated or they parrot political view points. School has no effect.

This just shows how broken the educational system is.

[boutons_deux]

Here Are the Proposed Texas Science Lessons Freaking Out the Scientific Community

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2011/07/here_are_the_proposed_texas_sc.php

TX "Christian" Taleban just showing their Bible-induced ignorance.