U.S. history textbooks could soon be flavored heavily with

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Orwell nailed it.....wrong country tho...

DoubleGood.

Not even for Airstrip One.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Politics, religion and subjective opinion does not belong in education.

I repeat,

Fucking interfering wankers!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Moved to news-Pluto2

Texas conservatism

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1253

http://rationalia.com/z/Funny%20large/bull01.gif[/imgc]

[rab]

I've read a few extensive articles about the people on the TX Board of Education. They include pseudo-historians, creationists, and right wing demagogues who believe that church/state separation is a myth. This certainly explains the expulsion of Thomas Jefferson as an important influence on American history and replaced with the likes of religious leaders like Thomas Aquinus. They are rewriting history to say that the nation was founded on Christianity. Jefferson doesn't fit into this narrative. These are the same type of people that legislated "under god" into the pledge of allegiance.

Hopefully, teachers will keep these books shelved and use other educational sources.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I've read a few extensive articles about the people on the TX Board of Education. They include pseudo-historians, creationists, and right wing demagogues who believe that church/state separation is a myth. This certainly explains the expulsion of Thomas Jefferson as an important influence on American history and replaced with the likes of religious leaders like Thomas Aquinus. They are rewriting history to say that the nation was founded on Christianity. Jefferson doesn't fit into this narrative. These are the same type of people that legislated "under god" into the pledge of allegiance.

Hopefully, teachers will keep these books shelved and use other educational sources.

The latest no. of Skeptic has an article on this matter. Worth looking up.

[rab]

This is a bit lengthy but worth the read.

This blog at Right Wing Watch gives some highlights.

[Ian]

Let's just let Texas secede. I'd be OK with it.

[Bella Fortuna]

Let's just let Texas secede. I'd be OK with it.

"Don't let the Union hit you on the arse on the way out"

[xrayzed]

Removing Jefferson and adding Aquinas. Right. That's just so consistent with the "Founding Fathers" shtick these people have been yammering about for the past couple hundred years.

Dropping "capitalism" in favour of "free markets" is clear evidence that they are using history books for the propaganda purposes:

1) Capitalism and free markets aren't the same thing.
2) If you really think capitalism is so fucked up it can't be taught to school kids, maybe you should have a closer look at fixing the problems instead of relabelling them to make them more palatable.

[Martok]

Yep, Texas is a fucked up state. Trying to elevate Jefferson Davis to the same level as Lincoln is absurd. Even Shelby Foote, a Southerner, has said Jefferson Davis wasn't in Abraham Lincoln's league. Foote said if Lincoln were president of the confederacy the South would have won the Civil War.

[Ian]

Yep, Texas is a fucked up state. Trying to elevate Jefferson Davis to the same level as Lincoln is absurd. Even Shelby Foote, a Southerner, has said Jefferson Davis wasn't in Abraham Lincoln's league. Foote said if Lincoln were president of the confederacy the South would have won the Civil War.

This sort of thing is where optimism should come in. Despite what a textbook may imply, there isn't a schoolteacher in the country (well, maybe just a few) who would paint the north and south as mere opposites on a similar moral level, let alone Lincoln and Davis as apples and oranges on the same intellectual level. The same will go for plenty of the other new wordings.
And if things go far enough, far enough to really piss of teachers and parents, that's when the backlash really happens.

[mozg]

Removing Jefferson and adding Aquinas. Right. That's just so consistent with the "Founding Fathers" shtick these people have been yammering about for the past couple hundred years.

Dropping "capitalism" in favour of "free markets" is clear evidence that they are using history books for the propaganda purposes:

1) Capitalism and free markets aren't the same thing.
2) If you really think capitalism is so fucked up it can't be taught to school kids, maybe you should have a closer look at fixing the problems instead of relabelling them to make them more palatable.

Their problem with the word 'capitalism' is that they think it is a Marxist slur against a free-market economy. They don't want their children to not learn capitalism, they just don't want to see their beloved economy labeled with a term they view as having come straight from Karl Marx.

In their minds they are not re-labeling. They believe strongly that they are simply removing the derogatory label applied by Marx in favor of what the 'real name' for such an economic system is.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Thomas Jefferson no longer included among writers influencing the nation’s intellectual origins.

Cue the Hitch in 5, 4, 3, 2...

[Feck]

- Thomas Jefferson no longer included among writers influencing the nation’s intellectual origins. Jefferson, a deist who helped pioneer the legal theory of the separation of church and state, is not a model founder in the board’s judgment. Among the intellectual forerunners to be highlighted in Jefferson’s place: medieval Catholic philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas, Puritan theologian John Calvin and conservative British law scholar William Blackstone. Heavy emphasis is also to be placed on the founding fathers having been guided by strict Christian beliefs

Aquinas and Calvin CALVIN ! FFS

[xrayzed]

Dropping "capitalism" in favour of "free markets" is clear evidence that they are using history books for the propaganda purposes:

1) Capitalism and free markets aren't the same thing.
2) If you really think capitalism is so fucked up it can't be taught to school kids, maybe you should have a closer look at fixing the problems instead of relabelling them to make them more palatable.

Their problem with the word 'capitalism' is that they think it is a Marxist slur against a free-market economy. They don't want their children to not learn capitalism, they just don't want to see their beloved economy labeled with a term they view as having come straight from Karl Marx.

I understood this was merely case of the right trying stack the debate by re-framing the language. This is just as they did by calling anti-abortion "pro-life", positioning people favouring a woman's right to abortion as "anti-life".

In their minds they are not re-labeling. They believe strongly that they are simply removing the derogatory label applied by Marx in favor of what the 'real name' for such an economic system is.

I think they know precisely what they are doing, and why. The right understands how to use loaded language as a political tool. For a similare case read this piece rationalising "pro-life" as being a means "to re-frame the debate in true and accurate lannguage": http://www.humanlife.org/donate_program_history.php

If there problem is they think it's a Marxist invention they're even dopier than I thought.