Chavez touts socialism to Venezuela kids

[Zorro]

<snip>

Hugo Chavez on Sunday urged kids to embrace socialism, raising the ire of educators and parents who turned back the Venezuelan president's earlier proposal to rewrite textbooks to add socialist doctrine.

Chavez celebrated a Venezuelan holiday promoting children's welfare by telling a group of adolescents to become socialists with the monk-like mission to serve the poor that was espoused by Cuban revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

"We must study socialism," said Chavez, telling the children they should read Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels — authors of the "Communist Manifesto" — along with other socialist thinkers.

Capitalism "exploits children, confuses and poisons them," he said.

Chavez — a close ally of Cuba's Fidel Castro — wants to model Venezuelan teaching on the ideological education in communist-led Cuba, educator Leonardo Carvajal warned after the speech.

<snip>

More at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080720/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/venezuela_socialism_for_kids

[Judi Lynn]

1. Oh, that's a hot one. Where was your AP stenographer when Bush was pushing Lynne Cheney's

history rewrite, America: A Patriotic Primer, anyway? He kept dragging his butt to classroom after classroom, probably finding the companionship there so much easier to understand, showing kids the new right-wing take on history:







Even got that nice Governor Perry busting his butt doing it, too.

Published on Wednesday, July 3, 2002 in the Austin American-Statesman
Lynne Cheney's Primer: G is for Gloss Over
by Robert Jensen

This Fourth of July, many American parents will no doubt be reading Lynne Cheney's alphabet book, America: A Patriotic Primer, to their children.

If kids pay close attention they will learn a lot, but unfortunately it will be a lesson in obfuscation and distortion. Cheney --the wife of the vice president, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities and a noted conservative intellectual -- offers a whitewashed version of U.S. history that is morally and intellectually offensive.

Note, for example, the letter T, for tolerance: "Free to think and believe and pursue happiness in our own way, we recognize the right of others to do the same." No argument with that sentiment; I'm all for tolerance.

But skip back a few pages, to the letter N, "for Native Americans, who came here first," on a page adorned with drawings of American Indian notables and names of tribes.

Even allowing for the fact that it is an illustrated children's book and not a detailed history, her N page leaves out some rather significant facts that could be easily summarized. Yes, the Native Americans came here first. Then the Europeans came. Then the Europeans killed almost all the Native Americans and took almost all the land.

I suppose one could claim that the Europeans were T-is-for-tolerant of the Native Americans, at least tolerant of those who accepted less-than-human status and did what they were told. American Indians were free to think and believe and pursue happiness in their own way, so long as they got out of the way of the white folks who wanted the land and resources.

And along the way, those white folks carried out the one of the most successful genocides in recorded human history. Depending on the size of the indigenous population in North America at the time of Columbus' arrival (12 million is a conservative estimate), 98 to 99 percent of that population was dead by the end of the 19th century.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0703-07.htm

A few Amazon customer reviews of her "book:"
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:k8egJ2N4HEMJ:www.amazon.com/review/product/0689851928%3FfilterBy%3DaddOneStar%26pageNumber%3D2+America:+A+Patriotic+Primer+Lynne+Cheney+rewrite+history&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us

Fascists truly are the pits. True deviants. Liars. Scum.

[Zorro]

2. Trying to change the subject again, I see

So are you disputing the news report?

Going off-topic is a noticeably consistent pattern with you, whenever there's an article that reveals something about your idols you'd rather not have people read.

[Bacchus39]

3. I would say that the Lynn Cheney book is more appropriate for children than the Communist Manifesto

and being a children's book its not necessary to include the ugliest parts of American history including graphic details as the academic thought it should.

I don't know if Cheney advocates a particular economic/politcal system either. let us know. looking forward to you review on both works.

[Mika]

9. Oh yes.

No need to mention that the foundation of the colonization of America - expropriation, witch burning, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and slavery - were bad things.
What would the kids think?
Mrs Dick Cheney sez ... America is, will be, and has always been good. Move along. Nothing to see here but red white and blue.
Its Chavez (and his buddy, Fidel) who's bad.

:sarcasm:



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[Bacchus39]

10. witch burning, slavery, genocide definitely what you want in a children'ns book

lets teach them to have contempt and disdain for the country. good idea. you must be an educator.

[Mika]

11. "lets teach them to have contempt and disdain for the country"

Interesting that you took that from my comment. Understanding the history of America ... Is that how you feel about the US?

With its many blemishes, I look at the history of the US generally as the noble resistance against the aforementioned tyranny by the few well reasoned patriots who stood up to resist and to enlighten others to take a higher path. Thats why I'm angry at what has happened to this country over the last several decades. Many of the gains of the dedicated patriots who built a path for a social infrastructure and well regulated economy have been destroyed or weakened. But, this being a surprising country, I'm sure there will be resistance against it with new progressive people with revolutionary ideas to get us back on track. That is a basic theme of most children's books. Good overcomes evil.

You might like to read A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. Its a great history book.



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[AlphaCentauri]

4. Poor kids, they will never have a private pension, a 50 years house mortgage, a 15 years student loa...

those kids will lose their freedom to be in debt for the rest of their life, isn't it cruel.

[magbana]

5. GOOD, start 'em early! n/t

[killbotfactory]

6. Capitalism exploits just about everybody.

That's kind of the entire point.

[Texano78704]

7. Bingo!

[Mika]

8. Thanks for posting this positive story.

Viva Venezuela!
Viva Cuba!

The Bush policy/disaster capitalist advocates won't like this. :hurts:


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