What Did You Learn in Your Purposefully Dumbed Down Texas School Today?

Thursday, August 25, 2011 by the Austin American Statesman

by Craig Studer

 

Millions of Texas students head back to school this week confronted by a dramatically altered, state-mandated social studies curriculum.

The contentious hearings of the Texas State Board of Education received considerable attention in the spring of 2010, but seem to have fallen out of the public consciousness as the new school year begins. The new curriculum, officially called the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, deserves renewed attention, as it will undoubtedly surprise most Texans.

The fiercest battle during the board's hearings was fought over the 11th-grade history curriculum, which in Texas is "United States History since 1877." The exception to that timeline is the new state-mandated "Celebrate Freedom Week," during which students will learn about our founding fathers. That sounds simple enough, except that the only founding fathers included in the curriculum are Benjamin Rush, John Hancock, John Jay, John Witherspoon, John Peter Muhlenberg, Charles Carroll and Jonathan Trumbull Sr. What about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson or John Adams? They are nowhere to be found in the new high school TEKS. Students apparently learned everything they need to know about them in eighth grade.

As part of the board's effort to emphasize the positives in American history, students will no longer learn about "American imperialism." Instead students will discuss "American expansionism" and come to understand how "missionaries moved the United States into the position of a world power." The board eliminated mention of our government's use of propaganda during World War I, and instead of analyzing Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb at the end of World War II, students will now analyze the development of the bomb. Additionally, students will now "evaluate efforts by international organizations to undermine U.S. sovereignty." The board included Estee Lauder in the state curriculum, but not George Washington.

Perhaps you have heard something about a labor movement in the 20th century? No longer will your children. The only reference to a 20th-century labor movement will come when learning about Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. No mention of the Fair Labor Standards Act or the National Labor Relations Act. No mention of strikes or any labor dispute. The words "labor movement" were taken out of the TEKS. Perhaps there is not enough time because students must now "understand how the free enterprise system drives technological innovation ... such as cell phones, inexpensive personal computers and global positioning products."

Students will learn about the contributions of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority. Maybe the students will read Falwell's claim that feminists and homosexuals were partially responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Phyllis Schlafly, the Heritage Foundation and the NRA are all included. Students will also be required to "discuss the meaning of ‘In God We Trust.' "

History in Texas classrooms will be decidedly different from when we were students. I never learned "both the positive and negative impacts of ... country and western music" in my high school history class. Where would you rate Estée Lauder in terms of historical importance to our country? If you think she is one of the 68 most important historical figures, you agree with the board. Yes, the board included her in the state curriculum, but not George Washington.

I also never learned that the findings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities were confirmed, perhaps because it is not true. It puts teachers in an awkward position by asking them to teach something that is historically inaccurate. I will not have to deal with that issue in some of my classes because my Advanced Placement U.S. History classes are not required to follow the state curriculum. I am guessing that the Texas Education Agency realizes that students could never pass national exams while learning the state-mandated curriculum.

During the next decade, we should not be surprised when university professors lament that Texas students are not prepared for college. Malcolm X once said, "Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today." You might remember a historical figure named Malcolm X, but your children won't. Malcolm X is not in the social studies curriculum in Texas. Now if you will excuse me, I have to do some research on Estée Lauder. She was not mentioned in any of my graduate history courses, either.

On Eve of Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, Arizona Sues to Overturn Voting Rights Act

(Oh Arizona...1860 called. They want their simple-minded lunacy back. If there are any rational people living in Arizona, could you please man up and take your state back from the backward and clueless who are trying to send you back a century or more in the past. It has to be so embarrassing for you. Get off your asses and take back your state. Otherwise, we'll be forced to nuke Arizona from orbit...to be safe.--jef)

Friday, August 26, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

by Jeff Biggers

 

It took years for Arizona to recover from right-wing Governor Evan Mecham’s disgraceful act to rescind the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday in 1989.

Now, on the eve of the unveiling of the national memorial to the civil rights leader in Washington, DC, Attorney General Tom Horne has joined a lone county in Alabama to make Arizona the first state to file a suit against the Obama administration to strike down parts of the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965 — spurred by the horrific violence encountered by King and civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama — as unconstitutional.

“President Lyndon Johnson’s high spirits were marked as he circulated among the many guests whom he had invited to witness an event he confidently felt to be historic, the signing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act,” King wrote. “The bill that lay on the polished mahogany desk was born in violence in Selma, Alabama, where a stubborn sheriff … had stumbled against the future.”

Claiming that sections of the Voting Rights Act are “either archaic, not based in fact,” Horne has indeed stumbled against his own future and Arizona’s unfinished history of voting rights violations.

Horne, of course, is infamous in Arizona for his controversial witch hunt and eventual ban of bilingual education and the acclaimed Mexican American Studies Program in Tucson. The Attorney General has openly lied in the past about his history of bankruptcy and has the unique distinction of being banned forever from the Securities and Exchanges Commission after he “willfully aided and abetted” securities law violations.

His law suit this week marches in step with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and her Arizona Gone Wild legislature’s obsession to defy federal authority over gun laws, health care, immigration policy, and border security.

US Attorney General Eric Holder immediately responded to Horne’s suit: “The Department of Justice will vigorously defend the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act in this case, as it has done successfully in the past.”

Despite the fact that President George W. Bush signed the Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act in 2006, it clearly rankles Horne to be included as “covered jurisdictions” among Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia and a handful of others states for “preclearance,” which requires Department of Justice approval for any changes in election policy, practices or administrative functions.

Echoing the state’s right mantra of notorious State Senate President Russell Pearce, who is currently embroiled in a recall election, Horne declared in his suit: “The State of Arizona is a sovereign state within the United States of America.”

The Canadian-immigrant Horne, who likes to claim that he attended the historic March on Washington in 1963, could benefit from a conversation with Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) on the deadly violence during the “Bloody Sunday marches” in Selma, Alabama in 1965, which led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act.

Horne could also benefit from a lesson in Arizona voting rights history — and present reality.
In preparation for the reauthorization vote in 2006, an extensive report by Arizona State University researchers on Arizona’s voting rights record from 1982-2006 cited numerous violations and concluded: “Arizona’s record since 1982, when the temporary provisions were last reauthorized, shows that the state still has a long way to go.”
It gets worse.

Last fall, a report by Common Cause ranked Arizona at the bottom of swing states for the worst voting laws. According to Tova Wang, author of the report, the strained atmosphere behind Arizona’s notorious SB 1070 “papers please” immigration law was just the beginning of larger voter irregularities: “One of the biggest concerns in this election, especially in Arizona, is that the ugly immigration debate will be leveraged into the elections and the voting process. We are worried about the use of vote suppression tactics such as challenges at the polls and bogus charges of noncitizen voting being used as a way to impose obstacles to voting that could affect a wide range of voters, but primarily people of color. Just the climate that has been created could have an impact on its own.”

Here are some of the “notable obstacles” to voter participation in Arizona:

Citizens must register to vote a full 29 days prior to the election, which could block some Arizonans from participating.

Restoration of voting rights is only available to individuals with a single felony conviction. Persons with two or more felonies are permanently disenfranchised. Not only is it problematic that many people who have served their time are disenfranchised, but the distinction between single and multiple offenders confuses even election officials, leading to the potential disenfranchisement of people who should have their rights restored.

Arizona is the only state that requires proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. Many citizens are not able to produce such documentary proof.

All voters must present either one form of photo ID or two forms of non-photo ID. If the voter does not have what the poll worker deems the requisite identification, he is forced to cast a provisional ballot. Some voters will not have the necessary ID.

Voters who cast conditional provisional ballots must provide proper identification to the county recorder within three to five business days in order for the ballot to be counted. Provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct will not be counted.
Arizona’s laws regarding challengers at the polling site are lax: voters may be challenged by any qualified elector of the same county and standards for initiating challenge procedures are low.

The absence of specific laws targeting deceptive practices such as dissemination of misinformation about the electoral process leaves voters vulnerable to confusion and disenfranchisement.

Arizona has historically had inadequate outreach to certain language minority communities covered by the Voting Rights Act, and gaps in coverage for qualified and trained bilingual poll workers.

How Democracy Breeds Political Idiocy

Blind Trust
By JAMES BOVARD

Democracy breeds gullibility. Lord Bryce observed in 1921, “State action became less distrusted the more the State itself was seen to be passing under popular control.” The rise of democracy made it much easier for politicians to convince people that government posed no threat, because they automatically controlled its actions. The result is that the brakes on government power become weakest at the exact time that politicians are most dangerous.

Blind trust becomes a substitute for informed consent. But mass trust in government compounds the political damage brought about by pervasive ignorance.

The bias in favor of trusting government brings out democracy’s worst tendencies. The normal defenses that people would have against alien authority are undermined by a chorus of politicians and government officials continually reminding people that government is themselves, and they cannot distrust the government without distrusting themselves.

How should people think about their rulers? This is a question that is rarely asked. Instead, it is preemptively squelched by myths pummeled into people’s heads from a very early age.

Since it has not been possible to neuter political power, citizens’ thinking on government has been neutered instead. Fear of government is portrayed as a relic of less civilized, unrefined times. There is a concerted effort to make distrusting the government intellectually unacceptable, a sign of bad taste or perhaps ill breeding, if not downright ignoble.

The central mystery of modern political life is: Why are people obliged to presume that politicians and government are more trustworthy than they seem? The question is not, Why do people distrust government? The question is, Why do people follow and applaud politicians who they recognize are lying to them? The mystery is not that politicians lie, but that citizens believe. It is not a question of giving rulers one benefit of the doubt — but of giving such benefits day after day, year after year, ruler after ruler.

America is perhaps the first nation founded on distrust of government. Checks and balances were included in the Constitution because of the danger of vesting too much power in any one man or one branch of government. The Bill of Rights was erected as a permanent leash on the political class. As Rexford Tugwell, one of Franklin Roosevelt’s Brain Trusters and an open admirer of Stalin’s Soviet system, groused, “The Constitution was a negative document, meant mostly to protect citizens from their government.”

The Founding Fathers issued warning after warning of the inherent danger of government power. John Adams wrote in 1772, “There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1799, “Free government is founded in jealousy, not confidence.... In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” The term “politician” was in disrepute from 1776 onward (thanks to the antics of Congress during the Revolutionary War and the conniving of some of the state legislators after 1783).

Many of the initial curbs on federal power were maintained for most of the first century of this nation’s history in part because Americans often had a derisive attitude toward government — especially the federal government.

Wariness toward government was one of the most important bulwarks of American freedom. Representative government worked fairly well at times partly because people were skeptical of congressmen, presidents, and government officials across the board. However, beginning in the early 1900s and accelerating in the New Deal, government was placed on a pedestal.

Trust After Failure

Trust in government is sometimes demanded most vociferously after some horrendous government blunder or abuse. Such was the case in the aftermath of a deadly no-knock raid by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and an FBI tank-and-toxic-gas assault on the home of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, in 1993, which ended with 80 dead men, women, and children. The Washington establishment almost instantly closed ranks around the federal government, canonizing Attorney General Janet Reno — the person who had approved an FBI plan to destroy the Davidians’ home to bring the siege to an end — as a hero.

The precedents established by one political party are routinely exploited for totally different ends by their opponents. During the 1990s, liberals were in the vanguard, preaching the need to trust government. After 9/11, it was George W. Bush who exploited boundless trust to expand government power in ways that mortified many liberals. The Bush administration could exploit 9/11 because Americans were predisposed to see credulity and obedience as paramount virtues.

The number of Americans who trusted the federal government to do the right thing more than doubled in the weeks after the attack. By the end of September 2001, almost two-thirds of Americans said they “trust the government in Washington to do what is right” either “just about always” or “most of the time.”

The foreign-policy response to 9/11 would have been far more targeted if scores of millions of Americans had not written George Bush a blank check in the form of automatic trust. The adulation and deference that he received in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 encouraged federal officials to believe that they could do practically whatever they pleased. Top administration officials were laying plans to attack Iraq within days after the Twin Towers collapsed, though there was no evidence linking Iraq to the attacks. Less than two weeks after 9/11, senior Bush administration officials were already claiming that the attacks gave the U.S. government carte blanche to attack anywhere in the world. Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo sent White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales a memo on September 25, 2001, suggesting that “an American attack in South America or Southeast Asia might be a surprise to the terrorists,” since they were expecting the United States to target Afghanistan.

The most costly entitlement

Blind trust in government is often portrayed as a harmless error — as if it were of no more account than saying prayers to a pagan deity. However, the notion that rulers are entitled to trust is the most expensive entitlement program of them all. “Follow the leader” has often been a recipe for national suicide. Throughout history, people have tended to trust most governments more than rulers deserved.

Blind trust in government has resulted in far more carnage than distrust of government. The more trust, the less resistance. It was people who believed and who followed orders who carried out the Nazi Holocaust, the Ukrainian terror-famine, the Khmer Rouge blood bath, and the war crimes that characterize conflicts around the globe. It is not just a question of acquiescence but of breeding a docile attitude toward political events and government actions.

Docility is a far greater danger than blind fanaticism, at least in Western societies. It is mass docility that permits fanatics to seize power and wreak havoc. The more people there are who unconditionally trust the government, the more atrocities there are that the government can commit. All that the government needs to do afterward is to label and blame the victim.

Excessive trust in government breeds attention deficits. People assume they do not need to keep an eye on government and politicians because government is no threat to them — because their government tells them so. Ignorance combined with blind trust produces citizens pliable for practically any purpose the ruler decrees.

When people blindly assume that their leaders are trustworthy, the biggest liars win. To believe their lies almost guarantees submission. To accept a false statement from one’s rulers is to submit to a lie — to intellectually submit. And submission is habit-forming. Politicians do not need to promulgate a duty to submit because as long as people believe, most will submit to almost anything. After people lower their mental defenses, political perfidy is halfway home. If people are trained not to doubt — politicians need only to continue lying and denying until all barricades that guard individual rights have been smashed, one by one.

Any politician who violates his oath to uphold the Constitution has proven himself unworthy of trust. What is the case for trusting someone who has proven himself untrustworthy? Should people be proud to trust politicians in a way that they would consider foolish regarding any other profession?

Much of the American public appears to separate the issues of trust and power — as if a person’s character is irrelevant to how much additional power he should be permitted to capture. For instance, regardless of the number of people who believed that Bill Clinton was a liar, his proposals to expand federal power to protect people or to give them specific new benefits generally had high levels of popular approval (excepting his 1993-94 health-care plan). Public support for vesting more power in an untrustworthy ruler is a sign of how few Americans still understand the nature of government.

In the same way that power corrupts, blind trust corrupts. To say that people should not blindly trust the government is not to call for anarchy or for violence in the streets or the torching of city halls across the land. It is not a choice between trusting the government and refusing to drive on the right side of the road. Instead, it is a call for people to cease deluding themselves about those who seek to control them.

Trust in a dishonest government is true escapism — an evasion of responsibility for one’s own life and liberties. Deference to lying rulers is self-betrayal.