rhiannonds asked: No, Texas doesnt speak to me at all either. But when it comes down to it, any knowledgeable exclusions or ignoring of history tend to rub me in REALLY the wrong way.
Archaeologist here. Can't help it.
Keeping it in perspective is one thing, but being quiet about blatant rewriting of history here, "to keep it balanced” is quite another. And I don't do "quiet" when it comes to things like this. It’s sick and wrong and pathetic. Seems like the whole point of school these days is to not learn anything of value. Just to take tests and kiss ass. Makes me mad, and I can only imagine what sort of lioness id be if I did have children of my own to think about.
And not a bad plan, honestly…but who knows when the book burning will begin down there eh?
No, I understand what you’re saying and why you’re upset. It upsets me too because it’s a distortion of the truth to suit somebody’s political bias. I never said that anyone should shut up and take it, just that the best ammunition against liars and people who bully around the intellectual establishment to their ends is action and there is never action without optimism so don’t get so depressed or pissed off that you lose sight of the facts. Texas doesn’t get to dictate the direction of all political discourse and educational standards in America and this article only pertains to Texas, so don’t throw your hands up and say “all is lost, we’re all doomed” just yet. That’s the only point I was trying to make about perspective. You’re right in that it’s actually an outrage and deserves a response but don’t be so down about that article that you assume it’s the end.
The thing I like about Zinn is that he was legimately a historian and not just a guy with an agenda. True, he had his opinions but his opinions were shaped by history, not the other way around. His opinions were shaped by historical fact and not a falsely self-aggrandizing distortion of history. I think stuff like that - more realistic and honest texts should be available to kids just to act as objective counter-programming to a biased cirriculum.
I’m sorry if I misspoke, I didn’t mean to imply that ignoring the issue was OK or that it’s no big thing and I certainly didn’t mean to excuse it.
