Timeflyer
Timeflyer's JournalWorking off a country's debts to the past.
OK, this is long, covers a lot, but so relevant to our time of demonizing CRT, rising anti-Semitism, racism, misogyny, and just outright nastiness. From "Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil," by Susan Neiman, pp84-86.
“These are crucial facets of any successful attempt to work off a nation’s criminal past:
1. The nation must achieve a coherent and widely accepted national narrative. Here language is front and center. Was the Civil War about slavery or states rights? The U.S. Department of Citizenship and Immigration Services isn’t certain. Was May 8, 1945, a Day of Liberation, or a Day of Unconditional Capitulation to Foreign Powers? Since the GDR (East Germany) called it a “Day of Liberation” from its inception. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer thought the use of the word liberation was communist. Although the East German narrative, like most any narrative, was incomplete, its tenor was very clear: NAZIS WERE BAD, DEFEATING THEM GOOD was never in doubt in one side of the country. For a good thirty years in the West, by contrast, that simple claim was drenched in ambivalence.
2. Narratives start with words and are reinforced by symbols, and many symbols involve remembering the dead. Which heroes do we valorize, which victims do we mourn? The United States has hundreds of monuments depicting a noble-looking Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate Army. In 2018, Bryan Stevenson dedicated a national monument to honor the victims of lynching, but where are the national monuments to the freedom fighter John Brown—or at least to Harriet Tubman? There are no monuments to the Nazis in Germany, East or West, but only after reunification did West Germany build significant monument to the victims.
3. Narratives are transported through education. What are children taught to remember, and what are they meant to forget? American textbooks have been improved since I was a child, when the heroic story of western expansion left out the genocide of Native Americans entirely, glossed over the horrors of slavery, and never mentioned Jim Crow. East German history textbooks were resolutely antifascist from the beginning. In the first decades after the war, West German children were left with the impression that history stopped after 1933; neither their teachers nor their textbooks discussed the Nazi period. Today Nazism is not merely covered in history classes; it has a central place in subjects like literature and art.
4. Words are even more powerful when set to music. So can we sing “Dixie”? What about the German national anthem? It gives most foreigners a chill, for they cannot help thinking of “Deutschland uber alles.” The anthem’s defenders are keen to point out that the tune was written by Joseph Haydn long ago. That notwithstanding, the GDR wrote new music as well as lyrics for its own national anthem. A national anthem, done properly, expresses its peoples’ best hopes. Done properly. It may be time for the United States to rewrite our national anthem, with its unsingable tune and its reference to a war no one remembers…
5. What about things that are less symbolic: hard, cold things like prison cells and cash? Are perpetrators brought to justice and placed behind bars? Is restitution made to victims of injustice? It took decades to bring the murderers in the most famous civil rights cases—Medgar Evars, Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner—to justice, and most criminals never faced justice at all. The Emmett Till case was reopened in 2018—sixty-three years after the murder…The list could easily be continued. West German justice prosecuted only a tiny number of Nazis and usually commuted the sentences of those who were convicted. East Germany tried and convicted a far greater proportion of war criminals. Both countries paid reparations, in different ways, for crimes committed in the Nazi era. As of this writing, The United States has refused to consider a congressional resolution to discuss the possibility of reparations for slavery.
This list is not exhaustive. Depending on time and place, other elements may come into play in a country’s attempt to work off its debts to the past.”
Proposed new law--make FL school board races partisan,
and "lawmaker" who wants to bring the GOP political scheming out into the light is named Roach. (They grow big in Florida, and some can fly.)
Goal--public school privatization. Tactic--take over school board, fire superintendent.
US Public education is under attack by dark money billionaires who want to control the curriculum and harvest all those delicious tax dollars for themselves. Locally, one incumbent (a pal of Steve Bannon's) and two new Sarasota FL school board members were endorsed by Proud Boys and Moms for Bigotry, and campaigned for by DeSATAN himself, in person. The new members replaced sane, brave, caring board members who endured horrible abuse during COVID over support of masking in schools--now their rational voices are gone, replaced by conservative ideologues.
Within minutes of being sworn in the newly conservative board voted 4-1 to fire the public school supervisor (one lone non-ideologue remains on the board). The motion to terminate the supervisor's contract was made by a conservative member who had graded the Super as "effective" 21 days before moving to fire him.
A fearless local group called "Support Our Schools" has been warning about this use of school kids as political pawns in the GOP quest for profit and thought control for at least a year--that's when a big corporate charter school business tried to make inroads in the county. Now they have organized a rally to support the Supervisor. But the area has become a hotbed of MAGA morons. And with DeSATAN authoritarian one-party controlled state government, it's a constant battle.
Other states and communities need to be aware that those who want the destruction of PUBLIC education are playing a long game, with plenty of money to support their cause. Profit is their ultimate goal, our kids are their pawns in this con, and they are relentless.
Goal--public school privatization. Tactic--take over school board, fire superintendent.
US Public education is under attack by dark money billionaires who want to control the curriculum and harvest all those delicious tax dollars for themselves. Locally, one incumbent (a pal of Steve Bannon's) and two new Sarasota FL school board members were endorsed by Proud Boys and Moms for Bigotry, and campaigned for by DeSATAN himself, in person. The new members replaced sane, brave, caring board members who endured horrible abuse during COVID over support of masking in schools--now their rational voices are gone, replaced by conservative ideologues.
Within minutes of being sworn in the newly conservative board voted 4-1 to fire the public school supervisor (one lone non-ideologue remains on the board). The motion to terminate the supervisor's contract was made by a conservative member who had graded the Super as "effective" 21 days before moving to fire him.
A fearless local group called "Support Our Schools" has been warning about this use of school kids as political pawns in the GOP quest for profit and thought control for at least a year--that's when a big corporate charter school business tried to make inroads in the county. Now they have organized a rally to support the Supervisor. But the area has become a hotbed of MAGA morons. And with DeSATAN authoritarian one-party controlled state government, it's a constant battle.
Other states and communities need to be aware that those who want the destruction of PUBLIC education are playing a long game, with plenty of money to support their cause. Profit is their ultimate goal, our kids are their pawns in this con, and they are relentless.
Political signage trends in FL counties?--seems like reThugs had money,
money for many, many signs, some so big and obnoxious, while Dems signage just wasn't there (at least in Sarasota). Theory--developer donor money make this sign saturation possible. Meanwhile, less well financed Dem candidates can't gain the same name recognition here.
The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American, by Seidel, 2019.
While MAGA nutters are ranting about US being a Christian nation (Boebert, et al.) this book tells the truth about our country's actual founding: before the Declaration of Independence made US a separate country, puritans and pilgrim British colonies on the American continent established Christian governments.
"The Puritans imposed the death penalty for worshiping other gods, blasphemy, homosexuality, and adultery. It is out of this society and this mindset that the terrible idea of a Christian nation founded on Christian principles lodged itself in the American psyche. And it is this intolerant legacy that must be abandoned That is what a Christian government looks like: exclusive, exclusionary, divisive, hateful, severe, and lethal...The insufferable Puritan theocracy declined after King Charles II revoked the colonial charter and passed the Toleration Act of 1689.
"All of this happened more than 100 years before the American Revolution and the drafting of the US Constitution. When the framers, like James Madison, surveyed history, they eschewed theocracy and intolerance, condemning the 'torrents of blood' spilled in the name of religion."
DUer Yellerpup in 2008 wrote "Refutations of 'Christian Nation' in quotes from Founding Fathers." Good to keep handy when the historically illiterate/shameless manipulators peddle the christian nationalist baloney about America. British colonies on this continent were examples of why the founders strongly supported separation of church and state.
Anywho, this book is a thorough exam by constitutional attorney Andrew L. Seidel at the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Highly recommend.
Traitor M. Flynn preaching against "woke," attacking public schools
South west Florida has unfortunately got a new resident--criminal M. Flynn. And he's preaching Christian nationalism while helping dismantle public education, because every retiree needs a hobby.
(Is Florida cursed? Are the spirits of indigenous people spreading an infection of insanity here, like Europeans spread smallpox?)
https://sarasotaheraldtribune-fl.newsmemory.com?selDate=20221020&goTo=A01&artid=6
Today I turned in 4 vote-by-mail ballots at Supervisor of Elections HQ drop box, Sarasota, and
a person overseeing the drop box asked if my ballots were from family members who reside with me. Being the brat that I am, I answered, "No, I got these from some random people on the street." She pointed to a sign that had the FL law about how many ballots you're allowed to drop off, blah, blah, reThug BS. Again, being a brat, I said, "yeah, I know. Arrest me, DeSantis."
A woman behind me laughed. The drop box person smiled and said, have a nice day. So, yeah, I felt kinda creepy, but kinda good, too.
Dems all the way!
MAGA ReThuglican Scare Words and Phrases (please suggest others, or use for drinking games/bingo)
Woke
Critical Race Theory/CRT
Grooming, groomers
Pedophile, pedo
Parent's rights
Genital mutilation
Antifa
Radical
Socialist
Crisis at the border
Illegals
Invasion at the border
Armed IRS agents
Soaring inflation
Elite, elitists
Cabal
Defund the Police
BLM, Black Lives Matter
Leftist
Liberal
Progressive
Satanic
Biden regime
Get up and march October 7-9, 2022 to protest Dobbs and protect our rights!
Nationwide protests are being planned for Friday Oct. 7 through Sunday Oct. 9, 2022, to show women's rage at Lame Court and red state laws criminalizing women's reproductive rights. Get involved, be loud and visible--our daughters lives are at stake. And of course vote Dem!
Check Planned Parenthood sites, Women's March, Women's Wave etc. online for locations and times.
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