Amazing.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/featur ... blake.html

money+power+fundies. Bad formula, bad equation. Frightening.

There's another factor in that equation. Play the victim. Pretend it's the scientists that discourage intellectual freedom. Pretend it's not about ideas and evidence, but really about modern day martyrdom. Nothing butters their bread like fancying themselves martyred for their beliefs.

And Texans wonder why a lot of other people hate their state...

I've always thought that Texans' oft spouted motto "Don't mess with Texas!" should be followed by one of these qualifiers:

"Because we are fucked up enough!"
"Because being ignorant and backwards is our hertiage!"
"Because the country needs at least one state that's a complete embarrassment."

How does this trend compare to other developed countries (UK, Germany, etc.)? Anyone know if they are facing similar pressures? I haven't seen much evidence of it in Australia but then, I'm not that involved.

Aside from the money the far right seem to have an enormous well of passion and energy for pushing their agenda. Rush Limbaugh is a household name and I often read about a statement by "such and such, a conservative think tank". So where is the left? Who is the left? Are we apathetic, too busy with refined activities, or just don't have enough money to compete?

Perhaps the general public's love of soap operas extend to their love for ridiculous political characters too, most of whom seem to belong to the conservative right-wing?

[quote="gregandkelly7"]How does this trend compare to other developed countries (UK, Germany, etc.)? Anyone know if they are facing similar pressures? I haven't seen much evidence of it in Australia but then, I'm not that involved.quote]

There are, as of today, 33 small private schools teaching YEC. The other schools in Germany place extremely high value on natural sciences. But: religion is a subject that is required in German schools with a choice of Catholicism, Protestantism or Ethics, the latter being the most popular choice, at least where I live. But even in the religion courses, nothing similar is taught. They can't afford to. After Ratzinger became pope, there was an exodus from the church and even in predominantly Catholic Bavaria, the church is considered more of a traditional relic than anything else.

But to return to your question, the answer is so far no. It's not unheard of but it is considered to be exceedingly backward, not exactly an attribute most Germans want,or even deserve.

The sad thing, to narrow it down to but one, is that the lack of intellectual curiosity extends throughout the population. So no, I don't believe the problem stops with the fundies. I wonder how unique Texas is in this regard. I'm guessing that while it's in the lower half of the states it's not at all off in the fringe by itself.

Prindle says the results recall a line from comedian Lewis Black. "He did a standup routine a few years back in which he said that a significant proportion of the American people think that the 'The Flintstones' is a documentary," Prindle says. "Turns out he was right. Thirty percent of Texans agree that humans and dinosaurs lived on the earth at the same time."

http://www.texastribune.org/stories/201 ... intstones/

The good news is, the kids don't pay attention anyway.

I have helped raise several children. Even the brightest retained almost nothing from high school social science classes. It may be an evolved survival trait but teenagers seem to have a highly developed nonsense detection mechanism when they are exposed to received wisdom from adults.

The science classes are more problematic. Especially with home-schooled children of ultra-right wing parents. You are not going to get through freshman biology without evolutionary theory in any US institution of higher eduction that you would want to put on your resume.

However, it is a crime to use kids to further your political agenda. Yes, I know, it isn't actually a crime, but it is punishable by the electorate (as the referenced article shows). The teaching of evolutionary theory was banned by some Kansas school districts. When their high school graduates could not get admitted to highly selective universities, things changed. The described behavior is despicable but not fatal. Have confidence in your children's common sense.

Well, now we are starting to see what brazen idiocy these fools wish to push on us. Imagine: they are in charge of texas' educators while they themselves are not educated!

Texas' is a leading consumer of textbooks. As a result, they have a lot to say about what goes into textbooks country-wide. The gaping stupidity being displayed here will not only bankrupt the minds of innocent texan children, but the rammifications will likely find their way into your children's schools as well.

Here are some of the changes intended for the young minds of america.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1253

- A greater emphasis on “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s.” This means not only increased favorable mentions of Schlafly, the founder of the antifeminist Eagle Forum, but also more discussion of the Moral Majority, the Heritage Foundation, the National Rifle Association and Newt Gingrich's Contract With America.

Schlafly became the most visible and effective opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment during the 1970s as the organizer of the "Stop the ERA" movement, widely credited with stopping it from achieving ratification by its legislative deadline.
-Wikipedia

Equal Rights Amendment:
Although the Nineteenth Amendment had prohibited the denial of the right to vote because of a person's sex, Alice Paul, a suffragette leader, argued that this right alone would not end remaining vestiges of legal discrimination based upon sex. In 1923, Paul drafted the Equal Rights Amendment and presented it as the "Lucretia Mott Amendment" at the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the 1848 Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments.

“ Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
-Wikipedia

So, she fought to keep women barefoot and pregnant. A conservative stalwart we can all look up to.

EDIT: Snippet from
washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/100 ... blake.html

The Texas legislature finally intervened in 1995, after a particularly heated skirmish over health textbooks—among other things, the board demanded that publishers pull illustrations of techniques for breast self-examination and swap a photo of a briefcase-toting woman for one of a mother baking a cake.

You make us proud Texas.

- A reduced scope for Latino history and culture. A proposal to expand such material in recognition of Texas’ rapidly growing Hispanic population was defeated in last week’s meetings—provoking one board member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out in protest. "They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don’t exist," she said of her conservative colleagues on the board. "They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world."

Barton and Peter Marshall initially tried to purge the standards of key figures of the civil rights era, such as César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall, though they were forced to back down amid a deafening public uproar. They have since resorted to a more subtle tack; while they concede that people like Martin Luther King Jr. deserve a place in history, they argue that they shouldn’t be given credit for advancing the rights of minorities. As Barton put it, “Only majorities can expand political rights in America’s constitutional society.” Ergo, any rights people of color have were handed to them by whites—in his view, mostly white Republican men.

- Changes in specific terminology. Terms that the board’s conservative majority felt were ideologically loaded are being retired. Hence, “imperialism” as a characterization of America’s modern rise to world power is giving way to “expansionism,” and “capitalism” is being dropped in economic material, in favor of the more positive expression “free market.” (The new recommendations stress the need for favorable depictions of America’s economic superiority across the board.)

Already too prevelant in our education system is this notion of constant, un-impeded assention to progress and utopia. We never look back, never falter, never lose quality of living, and we certainly never stepped on any toes to get here. (Much less slaughtered indigenous populations, enslaved people, upset legitimate democracies and fostered banana republics or upset delicate balances in the middle east.) This is just an extension of the conservative principle of hero worship.

"Don't try to fix anything you selves folks, you are not good enough, and you never will be. Wait for a hero like Jesus, or Reagan to come and make things right for you."

- A more positive portrayal of Cold War anticommunism. Disgraced anticommunist crusader Joseph McCarthy, the Wisconsin senator censured by the Senate for his aggressive targeting of individual citizens and their civil liberties on the basis of their purported ties to the Communist Party, comes in for partial rehabilitation. The board recommends that textbooks refer to documents published since McCarthy’s death and the fall of the Soviet bloc that appear to show expansive Soviet designs to undermine the U.S. government.

Yeah, McCarthy should really catch a break on this one... don't you think?

- Language that qualifies the legacy of 1960s liberalism. Great Society programs such as Title IX—which provides for equal gender access to educational resources—and affirmative action, intended to remedy historic workplace discrimination against African-Americans, are said to have created adverse “unintended consequences” in the curriculum’s preferred language.

In late 2007, the English language arts writing teams, made up mostly of teachers and curriculum planners, turned in the drafts they had been laboring over for more than two years. The ultraconservatives argued that they were too light on basics like grammar and too heavy on reading comprehension and critical thinking. “This critical-thinking stuff is gobbledygook,” grumbled David Bradley, an insurance salesman with no college degree, who often acts as the faction’s enforcer.


- Thomas Jefferson no longer included among writers influencing the nation’s intellectual origins. Jefferson, a deist who helped pioneer the legal theory of the separation of church and state, is not a model founder in the board’s judgment. Among the intellectual forerunners to be highlighted in Jefferson’s place: medieval Catholic philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas, Puritan theologian John Calvin and conservative British law scholar William Blackstone. Heavy emphasis is also to be placed on the founding fathers having been guided by strict Christian beliefs.

Well sure. That one goes without saying. Thomas Jefferson wasn't even around then. No wait. Are you talking about the Thomas Jefferson who wrote the declaration of independance? That one? The one who's writings were so very instrumental to the founding of our country? Is THAT the Jefferson they are trying to excise from our history? I thought they were talking about the Thomas Jefferson who works at my local supermarket.

Asserting that Tomas Aquinas or John Calvin had more to do with american history than Thomas Jefferson? Pure bullshit.

- Excision of recent third-party presidential candidates Ralph Nader (from the left) and Ross Perot (from the centrist Reform Party). Meanwhile, the recommendations include an entry listing Confederate General Stonewall Jackson as a role model for effective leadership, and a statement from Confederate President Jefferson Davis accompanying a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

- A recommendation to include country and western music among the nation’s important cultural movements. The popular black genre of hip-hop is being dropped from the same list.

Adding country and western is not a bad move, excluding hiphop is a taste move. They don't like rap, they don't like black people, and here it shows.

None of these proposals has met with final ratification from the board—that vote will come in May, after a prolonged period of public comment on the recommendations. Still, the conservatives clearly feel like the bulk of their work is done; after the 120-page draft was finalized last Friday, Republican board member Terri Leo declared that it was "world class" and "exceptional."

“Remember Superman?” he (Don McLeroy) asked me, as we sat sipping ice water in his dining room. “The never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way? Well, that fight is still going on. There are people out there who want to replace truth with political correctness. Instead of the American way they want multiculturalism. We plan to fight back—and, when it comes to textbooks, we have the power to do it. Sometimes it boggles my mind the kind of power we have.”

Indeed.

Full article below.
washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/100 ... blake.html