If Texan Theocratic Superstitionalists have their way, Ted Kennedy's name won't be in school books

[zulchzulu]

I know Christians and was raised a Catholic. I'm now a believer in the god MYOFBA (which stands for "Mind Your Own Fucking Business, Asshole") and personally think that more blood has spilled in the name of "God" than all wars... which many times are over which "God" is the "One".

So it comes with no surprise that the Texas State Board of Education, loaded with hair-brained Theocratic Superstitionalists, wants to "amend" school text books that would affect national text books for the next ten years to fill their anti-science, myopic Fox News Worldview agenda.

In today's New York Times Magazine's article How Christian Were the Founders?, here is what is going on, essentially under the media's radar:

Over two days, more than a hundred people — Christians, Jews, housewives, naval officers, professors; people outfitted in everything from business suits to military fatigues to turbans to baseball caps — streamed through the halls of the William B. Travis Building in Austin, Tex., waiting for a chance to stand before the semicircle of 15 high-backed chairs whose occupants made up the Texas State Board of Education. Each petitioner had three minutes to say his or her piece.

(snip)

Following the appeals from the public, the members of what is the most influential state board of education in the country, and one of the most politically conservative, submitted their own proposed changes to the new social-studies curriculum guidelines, whose adoption was the subject of all the attention — guidelines that will affect students around the country, from kindergarten to 12th grade, for the next 10 years. Gail Lowe — who publishes a twice-a-week newspaper when she is not grappling with divisive education issues — is the official chairwoman, but the meeting was dominated by another member. Don McLeroy, a small, vigorous man with a shiny pate and bristling mustache, proposed amendment after amendment on social issues to the document that teams of professional educators had drawn up over 12 months, in what would have to be described as a single-handed display of archconservative political strong-arming.

Essentially, what is decided by the board members of the Texas State Board of Education regarding what should or should be in books is what children will be taught or not for the next ten years or more.

So what do these Theocratic Superstitionalists want to take out of school text books?

McLeroy (board member) moved that Margaret Sanger, the birth-control pioneer, be included because she “and her followers promoted eugenics,” that language be inserted about Ronald Reagan’s “leadership in restoring national confidence” following Jimmy Carter’s presidency and that students be instructed to “describe the causes and key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.”

(snip)

Finally, the board considered an amendment to require students to evaluate the contributions of significant Americans. The names proposed included Thurgood Marshall, Billy Graham, Newt Gingrich, William F. Buckley Jr., Hillary Rodham Clinton and Edward Kennedy. All passed muster except Kennedy, who was voted down.

(snip)

The state’s $22 billion education fund is among the largest educational endowments in the country. Texas uses some of that money to buy or distribute a staggering 48 million textbooks annually — which rather strongly inclines educational publishers to tailor their products to fit the standards dictated by the Lone Star State.

(snip)

Since the election of two Christian conservatives in 2006, there are now seven on the Texas state board who are quite open about the fact that they vote in concert to advance a Christian agenda.

So, if you are talking to your child or someone else's child and they are puzzled by you mentioning Ted Kennedy, it's because his name was ripped out of school text books by a bunch of redneck Jesus freaks who are trying to inflict their superstitions on everyone else.

Here's a simple paragraph about Ted Kennedy that barely even covers the surface of what his legacy is:

Ted Kennedy’s greatest contributions—affecting hundreds of millions of Americans—were on domestic issues such as health, education, labor, and civil rights. But with the exception of his opposition to the war in Iraq, he played a largely overlooked but important role in international affairs, fighting for refugees from Vietnam to Ethiopia to Iraq and crusading against political oppression in nations such as Pakistan, Chile, Northern Ireland, and South Africa.

http://www.eturbonews.com/11269/global-hero-remembered-senator-ted-kennedy

Take his name out and put in Phyllis Schafly, a die-hard anti-gay, racist, pro-war swine. But remember she's the first one in the room to yell out to everyone that she believes in "God".

I ask all in the Senate and especially Barack Obama to completely expose and condemn these idiots. NOW!

Texas State Board of Education:
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index3.aspx?id=1156

[OHdem10]

1. Conservatives are serious about obliterating that smacks of Liberalism,

are they not???

The TextBooks used for all schools are from Texas.

Bury all vestiges of Liberalism. Never let our children
hear such heresy.

[rasputin1952]

2. Unless one goes to a religious school, there should be no mention

of any religion in textbooks, (open discussion is another matter, I am in favor of discussing any aspect of a society). The object of a Public Education is educate people to think, it appears that the antithesis to thought is being parlayed into the Texas State Board of Education.

This isn't a single state issue though, Boards of Education across the nation have taken up the banner of a "Good Christian Education", that honestly has little to do with education as education should be, but indoctrination, which is the antithesis of education.

For years, I have complained about many an educational bias against hard science, the vast majority of people I've talked to agree with me on this volatile issue. Parents are seeing their kids leaving school barely adept at the very basics we once considered essential to a society, reading writing and arithmetic. Students enter HS without these basics and it has shown up in the working population. I deal every day with individuals who are barely literate, not because they do not possess the intelligence to move forward, but because they have been indoctrinated as opposed to educated. When I talk to someone about nuclear fusion that makes the sun "work", I often get blank stares, not because this information is new, but because they were told that, "God lit the stars"...as if He was dancing through the cosmos and with a flick of His Bic, he joyfully fires up a star or two every day. I am not amused, and the dumbing down or America has to stop.

I am not anti-religion, but I am anti-ignorance...if we allow ignorance to be the end point of an educational system, we are already dead in the water.

On edit: bush will be mentioned, he'll get more attention that LBJ. I am willing to bet that DeLay will be mentioned as well...and perhaps get better billing that Sam Houston.

[Enthusiast]

12. But what you say is contradictory.

"I am not anti-religion, but I am anti-ignorance...if we allow ignorance to be the end point of an educational system, we are already dead in the water."

You say you are not anti-religious but you are anti-ignorance. But without ignorance how will religion thrive?



















:hide: :sarcasm:

[rasputin1952]

15. I see just as much ignorance in the non-religious as in the religious...

it appears that ignorance is not only for the sectarian alone...;)

[Celebration]

3. other states need to flex their muscle

That is the only way to combat this.

Massachusetts and NY and California need to say they won't but the textbooks that Texas wants. There is no reason with today's technologies that states can't have different textbooks.

[zulchzulu]

5. Very good point about technology now being able to be used for text books n/t

[BrklynLiberal]

4. The RWingnuts started doing this years ago...they infiltrated the school boards where ever they

could..and worked their way up from there.

the sad truth is that hardly anyone votes in the school board elections..so it was relatively easy for them to take over....
If the the liberals, democrats, progressives do not start doing the same thing...and soon...we have lost it all.

[The Doctor.]

6. More unreccers.

What a surprise.

[depakid]

7. Texas: an international laboratory for bad government

To paraphrase the late Molly Ivins.

[Odin2005]

8. These people are scary!

[frazzled]

9. Parents of the left: you can put up as much stink as the right about what appears.

in your kids' textbooks. It means you actually have to read them, of course. And then call school board members and write letters and attend meetings and organize with other parents.

No such preposterous material was ever in my kids' textbooks. In fact, by the time they got to high school, they didn't even read textbooks: the curriculum called for a lot of primary text reading--historical documents and actual published books. Heck, I remember my daughter having to read the Communist Manifesto in her European history course. But if I had ever encountered Phyllis Schlafly or some religious rot in my kids books, you can be sure I would have been raising a ruckus like a maniac.

[Enthusiast]

10. I like the term Superstitionalists.

They imagine themselves to be the ultimate arbiters of all things constitutional, more so than the supreme court. I.D.iots!

[zulchzulu]

16. I think I made the term up...

...and it fits what many of those people are.

I don't care if someone is Christian, Taoist, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim or whatever... as long as they keep their own personal spiritual journey to themselves and not get their hands on our democracy and try to turn it into a theocracy.

And I'm talking to you, you reactionary Zoroastrianists!

:smoke:

[JoePhilly]

11. They'd kill us if they could get away with it because ...

They view our unwillingness to believe what they believe as a direct assault .... by US on THEM.

And as we know ... preemptive attack is part of their nature.

[paparush]

13. Ralph Reed Quote - I'd rather have 1000 school board members than 1 president

than have 1 president with no school board members.

The Christo-Taliban has been serious about grassroots for a while now.

[vegiegals]

14. goggle "NCLB and textbook contracts" and you will get sick. It has

been going on for years with no let up.

[ShadowLiberal]

17. This is why our kids are falling behind & not as smart as their parents, promoting ignorance

This kind of crap as a move to 'indoctrinate' our kids with political values by ultra conservatives writing history books is exactly the reason why our kids are falling behind. It's also a danger for our future as a democracy if the electorate is uninformed and heavily ignorant, how can they make good decisions then? Seriously, we're already seeing it with politicians using crap like patriotism and bashing people for being too 'elite' if they're really smart/qualified for the job.

Unfortunately part of the problem here is that the culture is becoming toxic and susceptible to buying into crap like well educated being elitists, and letting blind patriotism blind them from the facts out of loyalty to the US. The patriotism in particular is one of the key tools for dictatorships to control the masses, blind patriotism, Germany barely even flies a flag anymore because of Hitler using patriotism so well to control people. And an uneducated electorate can only cause more and more problems long term, and more and more short term thinking and oversimplifying of issues in a dangerous way, like "tax cuts now" even when running up record deficits.