"11 henious lies conservatives are teaching america's schoolchildren"

[applegrove]

11 henious lies conservatives are teaching america's schoolchildren

By Amanda Marcotte at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/13/11_heinous_lies_conservatives_are_teaching_americas_school_children_partner/

"SNIP.........................................


Lie No. 1: Racism has barely been an issue in U.S. history and slavery wasn’t that big a deal.
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute reviewed the new social studies standards laid down by the right-wing-dominated Texas State School Board and found them to be a deplorable example of conservative wishful thinking replacing fact. At the top of list? Downplaying the role that slavery had in starting the Civil War, and instead focusing on “sectionalism” and “states’ rights,” even though the sectionalism and states’ rights arguments directly stemmed from Southern states wanting to keep slavery. There’s also a chance your kid might be misled to think post-Civil War racism was no big deal, as the standards excise any mention of the KKK, the phrase “Jim Crow” or the Black Codes. Mention is made of the Southern Democratic opposition to civil rights, but mysteriously, the mass defection of Southern Democrats to the Republican Party to punish the rest of the Democrats for supporting civil rights goes unmentioned.



Lie No. 2: Joe McCarthy was right.
The red-baiting of the mid-20th century has gone down in history, correctly, as a witch hunt that stemmed from irrational paranoia that gripped the U.S. after WWII. But now, according to the Thomas B. Fordham report, your kid might learn that the red baiters had a point: “It is disingenuously suggested that the House Un-American Activities Committee—and, by extension, McCarthyism—have been vindicated by the Venona decrypts of Soviet espionage activities (which had, in reality, no link to McCarthy’s targets).” Critical lessons about being skeptical of those who attack fellow Americans while wrapping themselves in the flag will be lost for students whose textbooks adhere to these standards.

Lie No. 3: Climate change is a massive hoax scientists have perpetuated on the public.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been hard at work pushing for laws requiring that climate change denialism be taught in schools as a legitimate scientific theory. Unfortunately, as Neela Banerjee of the L.A. Times reports, they’ve already had some serious success: “Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. South Dakota and Utah passed resolutions denying climate change.” Other states are taking the “teach the controversy” strategy that helped get creationism into biology classrooms, asking teachers to treat climate change like it’s a matter of political debate instead of a scientifically established fact.

The reality is that climate change is a fact that has overwhelming scientific consensus. In 2004, Science reviewed the 928 relevant studies on climate change published between 1993 and 2003 and found that exactly zero of them denied that climate change was a reality, and most found it had man-made causes. To claim that climate change is a “controversy” requires one to believe that there’s a massive conspiracy involving nearly all the scientists in the world. So, your kids are not only not learning the realities of climate change, they are also learning, if indirectly, to give credence to conspiracy theory paranoia.



........................................SNIP"

[indepat]

1. Holistically, the right-wing message is a big lie: no part of it has any validity, yet der

mittens got 47% of the vote of those who managed to cast a ballot, that is unless some votes were switched.

[TygrBright]

2. I think #11 is far and away the creepiest, for a whole slew of reasons...

...I mean, if it caught on it could wipe out literacy altogether and send the whole species back to...

....oh.

I guess that's what they're after.

worriedly,
Bright

[siligut]

3. Lie No. 5: Black people are the descendants of Ham and therefore cursed by God.

Among the courses justified by the 2007 Bible law, TFN found two school districts teaching that the various races are descended from the sons of Noah. All the Bible really says about the sons of Noah is that Ham was cursed by his father so that his descendants would be slaves, but American slave owners used this passage to claim that Africans must be the descendants of Ham and therefore their slave-owning was OK by God. Make no mistake. The only reason this legend has persisted and is popping up in 21st-century classrooms is that conservative Christians are still trying to justify the enslavement of African Americans over a century ago.

The MFing racist cretins.

[HughBeaumont]

5. Genesis 9 Verse 27.

God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Ham

That's where it originates from, and the racists have twisted this to mean they were right and the KKK was justified. Often times there is no such thing as a bad student . . . only a bad teacher. Notice how I said "often times".

[siligut]

6. The Mormons told me that blacks were cursed by god

And if they were good they would become light and wholesome . . . something like that.

I agree, those who want to justify their evil like to use god as an excuse.

[siligut]

4. And they want to stop teaching critical thinking skills

So kids won't know how to question this idiocy.