Slashdot Mirror
California Moves To Block Texas' Textbook Changes
eldavojohn writes "Yesterday the Texas textbook controversy was reported internationally but the news today heats up the debate as California, a state on the other side of the political spectrum, introduces legislation that would block these textbook changes inside California. Democrat Senator Leland Yee (you may know him as a senator often tackling ESRB ratings on video games) introduced SB1451, which would require California's school board to review books for any of Texas' changes and block the material if any such are found. The bill's text alleges that said changes would be 'a sharp departure from widely accepted historical teachings' and 'a threat to the apolitical nature of public school governance and academic content standards in California.'"
If you can't fight them... Put a fence around and let them devolve in peace.
"apolitical nature of public school governance"
Say what?
recall our ambassador to Texas.
This post misses the point of the entire debate.
Texas is such a large market for textbooks that publishers bend over backwards to produce texts catering to Texas' standards. Other, less populous states don't have the population to force publishers to make any sort of changes. They are mostly stuck with textbook standards set by big states like Texas or California. You can say "live somewhere else", but that's precisely the problem - short of states like New York, California, or Texas, you can't live anywhere else that has an effective say on textbooks. These states are the ones that, through sheer size, drag everybody else along. So, heaven forbid you decide you want to live in state with low population density where you're not surrounded by insufferable right wing nut-jobs or by liberal hippies.
'Cause we always wanted a third world country comprised of gun-toting Rednecks led by religious whackjobs right on our border.
"Now you know how we feel." -Random Canadian dude
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
In Peru, in the 80s, there was a group of maoist nutjobs called the "Shining Path," who vowed, among other things, to surround the cities from the countryside. What they were and are is a rural terrorist organization.
I've traveled in rural Texas recently. What you have there are a lot of poor, uneducated, disenfranchised white people sporting racist tatoos buying knives and swords at stands by the side of the road. The gun trade is a bit more private but still quite active. The textbook changes just reflect a wider change in worldview in the rural south. What they are poised to do are to become the next generation of terrorist nutjobs fobbing bombs at wealthier people, mostly in cities. They're just waiting for the next corn-pone Hitler, which the networks that gave us the Becks and Palins of the world will be all too happy to provide.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Gotta love the evil conservative hyperbole there.
No one is implying that all conservatives are evil. That's why it said this:
The alterations and fallacies made by these extremist conservatives are offensive to our communities and inaccurate of our nation's diverse history.
Frankly, if you've looked at the changes suggested, anyone in favor of these is an extremist. The best you could say is that they're not truly a conservative, as they're advocating wholesale revision to the point of making shit up. Here, TFA sums it up neatly:
The Texas recommendations... include adding language saying the country's Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles and a new section on "the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s." That would include positive references to the Moral Majority, the National Rifle Association and the Contract with America, the congressional GOP manifesto from the 1990s.
The amendments to the state's curriculum standards also minimize Thomas Jefferson's role in world and U.S. history because he advocated the separation of church and state, and require that students learn about "the unintended consequences" of affirmative action and Title IX, the landmark federal law that bans gender discrimination in education programs and activities.
If you don't already see that for the steaming pile of bullshit it is, let me break it down for you:
the country's Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles
"Lighthouses are more useful than churches." -- Ben Franklin.
Thomas Jefferson had some stronger words about the Christian faith in particular, but I couldn't find them offhand. No, these men were largely deists, making this an outright lie. The most charitable interpretation you could make is that they were guided by Christian principles, even if they weren't Christian, but that's obviously mistaken at best -- the Bible itself is clear about submitting to authority, that any Earthly authority (like, say, the British King) was placed there by God. No, they were guided largely by ideas floating around the world at the time, many dating back to the Greeks -- books like Plato's Republic, not the Holy Bible.
...a new section on "the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s." That would include positive references to the Moral Majority, the National Rifle Association and the Contract with America, the congressional GOP manifesto from the 1990s.
Hardly nonpartisan. I suppose you're going to tell me that the books are currently favorable to modern liberals? I'd say that this is pretty damning evidence of these being not just extremists, but conservative extremists.
The amendments to the state's curriculum standards also minimize Thomas Jefferson's role in world and U.S. history because he advocated the separation of church and state...
Can't have that, can we? It's only one of the pillars of the Great American Experiment, a prerequisite for religious freedom and expression. I very much doubt anyone writing this is a current member of the Church of England, are they? Then they owe their freedom to practice their current religion to Thomas Jefferson.
...and require that students learn about "the unintended consequences" of affirmative action and Title IX, the landmark federal law that bans gender discrimination in education programs and activities.
Are they really suggesting that banning gender discrimination was a bad idea? If you needed an example of why Yee said, "some Texas politicians may want to set their educational standards back 50 years," this is it.
I have to imagine that most conservatives would be ashamed to be associated with drivel like this. In light of that, I think the sentence you quoted is entirely true and warranted, as written:
The alterations and fallacies made by these extremist conservatives are offensive to our communities and inaccurate of our nation's diverse history.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Who calls it the War for Southern Independence? Everyone in the south knows it as the War of Northern Aggression :)
The Spanish/Mexican upper class enslaved native population of their conquered territory. But to be fair - the French and English in Canada and the US also took Native American slaves, as did many Native American tribes. That's the problem with history, if you care to look at all of it, there is always something that taken out of context can be used to support or demean someone's opinion. History, like science should be viewed critically not politically, if you wish to learn. Those who scrub the data are seeking to obtain an advantage over you to restrict your liberty for their own gain.
What information he had and what was going on at the time.
And what we now know was going on in the Japanese dictatorship at the time, which completely contradicts the notion that Japan was ready to surrender. They were not. Not even after the first bomb. After the second bomb, leadership was divided on the issue of surrender. What pushed Hirohito over the edge, was Stalin's threat of invasion from the north being added to the US threat of invasion.
State it like it's fact, and it is, I guess. But there is room for argument.
The Japanese leadership, which was in flux, especially with the ousting of Tojo and the "Control Faction," had been discussing surrender long before the dropping of the bombs. The invasion of Okinawa really sealed the fate of the country. True the propaganda talked about arming every last citizen with a pitchfork to fight off the invasion, but that was just that, propaganda. Tokyo was already firebombed into oblivion. B-29s were flying overhead without any resistance. The war was over, and the Japanese leaders knew it.
What was happening behind the scenes was pretty chaotic. There was at least one and probably more coups planned and staged as various military officers tried to take power. Sure there were some fanatics who wanted to fight to the last man, but they were luckily few by that point. The seppuku blades had gotten a lot of use.
Surrender did not happen in one shot. Diplomats from different sides were already talking in various foreign embassies. These sorts of prenegotiations usually happen through third party diplomats that both sides see as neutral. The sticking point as usual in WWII was the unconditional part of the surrender that the allies insisted on.
Russia was sitting on the border of Manchuria refusing to move. Stalin and Churchill in particular enjoyed making life difficult for each other. Relations were already breaking down between the US/British and USSR halves of the allies. Churchill in particular was already talking about Stalin as the real enemy now that Hitler was gone and Germany defeated. Roosevelt was more trusting of Stalin, but at this point he was dead, and Truman had taken office. Truman did not trust Stalin, and when he looked at the post war world, realized that Stalin was the biggest threat to America and Europe, not Japan. Russian tanks had rolled into many Eastern European capitals with a heavy hand.
Truman had 3 atomic bombs (I know, we say 2, but we probably lost the third to a japanese submarine on its secret delivery to Iwo Jima), and wanted to use them. Yes, they would help push Japan to have a propaganda excuse to finally sign the surrender, but more importantly, they made a big statement to Stalin. As to allowing the emperor to live. That seems to go against the unconditional part of the surrender. The reason was that the US wanted Japan built back up as quickly as possible as a buffer against Stalin (just like his eastern european "allies"), and it helped keep the stability in post war Japan.
So did we drop the bombs to end the war with Japan, or to start a cold war with the USSR? The answer is yes to both. And anyone who argues exclusively one side or the other is dramatically oversimplifying the situation.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.