Texas schools board rewrites US history with lessons promoting God and guns

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Guardian

Texas schools board rewrites US history with lessons promoting God and guns
US Christian conservatives drop references to slave trade and sideline Thomas Jefferson who backed church-state separation
Chris McGreal, Houston guardian.co.uk, Sunday 16 May 2010 17.19 BST

Cynthia Dunbar does not have a high regard for her local schools. She has called them unconstitutional, tyrannical and tools of perversion. The conservative Texas lawyer has even likened sending children to her state's schools to "throwing them in to the enemy's flames". Her hostility runs so deep that she educated her own offspring at home and at private Christian establishments.

Now Dunbar is on the brink of fulfilling a promise to change all that, or at least point Texas schools toward salvation. She is one of a clutch of Christian evangelists and social conservatives who have grasped control of the state's education board. This week they are expected to force through a new curriculum that is likely to shift what millions of American schoolchildren far beyond Texas learn about their history.

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.

"We are fighting for our children's education and our nation's future," Dunbar said. "In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections."


Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history

[onehandle]

1. I was listening to a lot of UK radio during the recent elections. They think we are nuts.

They were speculating that teabaggers are our core. They called our gun obsession 'frightening.'

I think the election of Obama produced a short lived sigh of relief from the world and stories like this one are giving them second thoughts.

[glinda]

8. Most US citizens are nuts.

[Karenina]

19. Y'all be nuts having a collective 19th nervous breakdown.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR7VLjWsZnw&feature=PlayList&p=326321BE20AB0622&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=59

complete with Spanish subtitles! :rofl::hide::rofl:

[Swamp Rat]

25. ¡Perfecto!

:rofl:

[saigon68]

30. DRILL BABY DRILL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9D3epQL704

[truthisfreedom]

2. Totally delusional.

[defendandprotect]

3. k

[Horse with no Name]

4. I guess it will all commence with a large book-burning

of all of the liberal history books. Heaven forbid they should fall into the wrong hands.

[Kerrytravelers]

5. A CA legislator is looking to halt the influx of this foolishness into Califrnia texts.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=141x37282

[fishwax]

28. I think that could work

And I hope that it does :bounce:

[raouldukelives]

6. Now they can get rid of all the evil iberal stuff in the Bible

Like feeding the hungry and healing the sick.

[MisterP]

9. alas, the reality is starting to arrive before the parody does

#9 on http://journals.democraticunderground.com/top10/375
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6729615

[raouldukelives]

11. Wow! This would be laughable

If it wasn't so scary. I really cannot believe how insane the Christian right are becoming.

[RKP5637]

10. +1, Yep, I'm 100% sure it gets in their way! n/t

[Shallah Kali]

29. .

[RKP5637]

7. I wish we would have a huge far left swing in this country. I wonder how much more

of this BS citizens will tolerate. Are we really this foolish in this country so as to be held hostage by Texas... Are they the only ones that can publish a book...:grr: :grr: :grr:

[depakid]

21. One doesn't have to be "far left"

to appreciate basic objective facts.

Bottom line is that Dunbar and her associates are plain old fashioned liars. Not much more to it than that.

[Trillo]

12. With rewrites like this going one, all compulsory-school students should receive an

automatic pass in history classes. It's no wonder that history doesn't make sense ... they're lying! They've been lying. A new thug gets in power, and the history books change.

Perhaps rewriting the class name from History to Propaganda would be an honest label to attach.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli#Article_11

[704wipes]

27. we can be thankful that so many history teachers are Coaches

It means not much of this will get taught any better than what is in the books now...
The real reason that kids don't 'get' history is that so many dumb coaches are the teachers in this area.

I remember my dad saying it 40 years ago, and my observation is that it is still true.

[CRK7376]

32. I resent that broad bursh painting of coaches!

I teach US History, AP US History, AP European History, Civics/Economics, and World Geography, plus I find time to coach Cross Country and Track and Field in a small, southern community. Unfortunately my congressional critter is Virginia Foxx of NC 5th District and Richard Burr of the Senate...Somewhere along the way I've also managed to pick up three master's degrees....and pull a tour in Afghanistan and despise all that G W Bush created and did to our country.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

13. Texas is also dropping Thurogood Marshall from books...

... seen it on a PBS show this morning, they don't think he was "significant enough" to be worthy of mention as a Supreme Court justice.

[Angry Dragon]

14. "a belief in America as a nation chosen by God "

If god chose this country then why wasn't the bible written in English to begin with??

[mr clean]

26. Good question!!!

[Jack_DeLeon]

15. Cornbread...

like God and Guns, aint nothing wrong with that.

[Phlem]

16. Is there anyway to track these books

and know which schools in the country they're going to.
It'd be cool to find a resource that gave:

Title
Author
ISBN#
Date published
What states and counties or even school districts they were sent to?

I want non of this crap here in Washington. Or anywhere for that fact and I hope parents take a stand for their children.

We need to stop perpetuating ignorance people, not embracing it or shrugging it off for someone else to fix.

Can you imagine the next generation being even more clueless than the current?

This cannot be the first in a long line of "adjusted" books based off of one state's school board's collection of crazies! Which could have nation wide damaging result's to this country's future. Except maybe the top 1 % of course.

I mean shit, we're fighting and giving so that our kids can go get a decent education in the first place but now we have to fight to keep the information friggin accurate?

Education is getting freaking hammered, ask yourself why, so in the future it's easier to fool all the people all the time?

Not my girl!

-p

[No Elephants]

17. Texas gets to influence school books nationally bc it buys so many. Blues states should form a

textbook buying cooperaive and thereby become the largest purchaser. Then, maybe kids in this country can get fact-based text books.

[MadMaddie]

24. I think that you are onto something

We have to take the Texas influence out of school books and have a viable option for states to go to.

This is dangerous rewriting history to favor religion and only anglo hero's like Reagan and dropping Thurgood Marshall.

[rocktivity]

18. What you're fighting for is theorcracy and propaganda

you know, what we used to look down our noses at the Russians about?

:eyes:
rocktivity

[depakid]

20. Cynthia Dunbar- one more product of and advocate for the culture of lies

In a society that valued objective facts, people like Dunbar and her associates would be relegated to the fringe and wouldn't be allowed anywhere near a state education board.

[LarryNM]

22. Note to Rest of World

We were told that Any Nation with Fundamentalist Religious Ideas like these in their Government was Too Dangerous to be allowed WMDs.

[achtung_circus]

23. Texas

has a long history of revising facts. The attempted exclusion of evolution is a case in point.

It's not just history, it's biology and any other subject that is seen as interfering with their "vision". A vision firmly rooted in desert nomad mythology.

[progressoid]

31. "we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism & to promote free enterprise system

Ummm...

WHAT THE FUCK?