's fine with me. Kids usually regard everythin they learn in der publik schools as propaganda and bunkum once they graduate anyway...so's it looks like just this one time they'll be right!

You've all read the "IF YOU DONT LOVE YOUR COUNTRY, GET OUT!" posts, even here, and the fact that anyone that criticises what the country is doing during conflict gets the McCarthy treatment.

'Anyone who criticizes what the country is doing'? Sorry, but in my experience the only people who are the target of these sort of comments really deserve it...people who have lots of bad things to say about the U.S. government drafting farm boys to die in Nam...but nothing bad to say about the (infinitely worse) VC. People who whine about McCarthy...but have nothing bad to say about Hiss, the Rosenbergs, the American Communist Party's subservience to the Soviet agenda and infiltration of the U.S. government. You know, idiots.

I'd say, as a non-american, that the US is a great place that suffers too much from public apathy.

TOO MUCH PUBLIC APATHY?!? Hah! Most Americans at least know what their representatives stand for, and American politicians tend to react quickly to any policy proposal with a significant following. Compare to, say, France, where a Nazi like Le Pen was able to make #2 because he was the only candidate (or of dozens) to address bread-and-butter issues like IMMIGRATION and CRIME? Or the socialist European states that have such large indolent classes that the only way a politican can get elected is to support huge welfare increases?

i got a better idea, lets put ashcroft in charge of schools, that will teach those farking liberal teachers

/fanning the flames

Felgraf
I agree with what you say. A point I would like to add is, if all we do is remember is the bad and slowly forget about the good, eventually wouldn't we look back and find ourselves with nothing to be proud of??

Well, the way i see it, kids get enough conservative propaganda on tv. It needs to be "fair and balanced" with some liberal propganda in the schools. And yes, the pun was definately intended.

2003-09-10 12:02:18 AM ArmadilloTamer

Public schools are more concerned with teaching kids to vote Democrat instead of educating them.

Since if you're educated, you're not gonna vote Democrat.

Educated in what sense? All of the mathematic ph.d. students that I personally know of vote Democrat...and that's a craft which requires you to make logical and "educated" approaches to every argument that you make.

T.Durden:

Yes, they mean "educated". Academia has always tended to fit the true definition of "liberal".
But you're talking about mainstream FOX drones and dittoheads who are referring to equally myopic tree-huggers and anarchists. That's the reason that this conversation keeps smashing it's head into a wall.

Geez, this is the biggest flamewar that never happened.

Okay, care to point out some of the glowing moments in US history? I mean I can pretty much come up with something bad that corresponds to it.

Umm, look out the window tonight. You'll see this:



TWELVE Americans stood on it. TWENTY-SEVEN passenger seats were filled and returned safely to Earth from it.

There are not one, but THREE CARS *parked* on it.


Meanwhile, in the enlightened Rest of the World:



Islamic men cut their heads open and pour blood on their children. *That's* impressive!


We are the Jetsons in a Flintstone world.

/Keep banging the rocks together. Maybe you'll get it someday.

Ok, Lets see who runs the schools Its the ultra liberal NEA. They have had an agenda for years, and are force feeding it to our kids.

look at new your with their new gay school. whats that all about.

They just want to promote a "United Nations" style school system where the United States is not a sovern nation. If it was up to them, they would Step 1, have a communist society. Step 2 not have an United States. Step 3. Profit....



By the way.....2003-09-10 12:11:27 AM Felgraf


McCain is not a real Republican.



Farkinkg Liberals...

I thank God my teachers were not pussy enough to break down and force-feed us all the "America is perfect. We do nothing wrong" bullshiat.

History is not pretty. I'm certain a great many of those in power would like it very much is kids were never taught that our government funded a terrorist-overthrow of the popularly-elected Nicaraguan government so United Fruit could keep it's land. Or about the Shi'a, or Panama, or anything else.

I for one am very proud and thankful for every History teacher I ever had. Every history teacher I had admited that the textbook is shiat, and that they had very certain guidlines they had to follow in teaching the course, that dealt with the portrayl of U.S actions through the end of the 20th century.

DarthBrooks: (sorry, but I had to do it)

Two words: "Challenger" and "Columbia"

/every silver lining has a cloud (apologizing for my cynicism)

God forbid people think outside of party lines.

Here in Canada we have more parties to not vote for. They may be horrible, but at least they're entertaining and easy to tell apart.

"not enough about its values and freedoms"
...
Excuse me? Values and Freedoms? Last time I looked around we were living in a place where every value has its price (usually $3.50) and constitutional freedoms #1-4 were not-so-slowly being choked by our supreme high leader who can go to war whenever he feels like it without a congressional order into non-existance. Nice to know i was wrong.

fstop:
Profit? In a public school? That's rich... (pun intended)

That's crazy. Everybody knows the US of A has never done anything negative. Ever. They are the truest heroes ever in the 6,000 years of the Earth's existence.

DarthBrooks

Yeah, here in the enlightened USA, only our social elite do weird shiat (like Skull N Bones).

Looks like the pendulum has swung the other way.

When I was in school, all we got was the sanitized version of history that made us out to be pure heroes. We learned all about "taxation without representation", but the textbooks completely failed to mention that the "unfair" tax was imposed was because we reneged on our promise to pay England back for the ships, munitions and troops we begged for during the French and Indian War.

And the War of 1812? It wasn't until I was long out of high school that I learned that we were one of the participants in it, let alone that the Canadians burned the White House. Somehow the curriculum glossed that whole thing right over.

Hot4Teacher

Two words: "Challenger" and "Columbia"

Last lunar landing: 1972
Challenger: 1986
Columbia: 2003

Challenger and Columbia had *nothing* to do with the US getting to the Moon.

If you want to point to a death toll, you'd have to use Apollo 1 as the closest relatable event. That was in an unfueled ship in a ground test, not even a space flight.

darthbrooks is funny. but not very politically correct. but then i think "politically correctness" has ruined this country.

"Educated in what sense? All of the mathematic ph.d. students that I personally know of vote Democrat...and that's a craft which requires you to make logical and "educated" approaches to every argument that you make"

i remember when i was in college. i was a huge liberal. what did churchill say? when your 20 and not liberal - you don't have a heart - but if you are 40 and not conservative - you don't have a brain.

i'm going on 41 this month, and yes churchill, i finally have a brain.

LOL!!! I love how people think this is a partisan debate!!!

This is the same school system that used "Little Black Sambo" as a textbook.

\glad to be old

2003-09-10 12:28:46 AM milesl

i remember when i was in college. i was a huge liberal. what did churchill say? when your 20 and not liberal - you don't have a heart - but if you are 40 and not conservative - you don't have a brain.

i'm going on 41 this month, and yes churchill, i finally have a brain.


Sure thing, sir.

DarthBrooks,

Nope, sorry but I'm not buying that. Challenger and Columbia are still a part of history and involve space accidents, regardles of the fact that they were not heading for the moon.

Besides, our reasons for the space race were more about Soviet envy than the search for new frontiers.

i call complete and utter bullsh@t on this article - if anyhting, folks in the US are NOT taught about the horrible truths of how we got here in the first place (disease-ridden blankets anyone?) - let alone what has happened since then.

the horror, the horror......

Oh wait, I even forgot about the fact that animals used to travel in space were later sent to research facilities (not retired honorably as many think)

/doom doom doom doom doom

fstop

They just want to promote a "United Nations" style school system where the United States is not a sovern nation. If it was up to them, they would Step 1, have a communist society. Step 2 not have an United States. Step 3. Profit....

Pronounced "Ooh-nighted States". Wow, it flows so much better that way!

Alger Hiss was railroaded. He may well have been a communist, but his guilt was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The veracity of the trial was dubious back then, much more so now that we know the kind of crap that fascist fairy J Edgar Hoover was up to.

DarthBrooks
You are being unfair. I could refute that post by stating that the moon landing could not have occurred without the Arab contribution of Algebra. And we Americans have lynched innocent black folks, most recently James Byrd here in the glorious state of Texas.


Things are not black and white. All teachers are not liberals. Being educated does not make one a liberal and having history books that concentrate wholly on the negative isn't any better than a jingoistic piece of propaganda.

Study reveals US schools portray the US negatively

At least they do a piss poor job of it, like everything else.

and here is a little PSA for you folks that need it:

The Earth is not your enemy.

That is all.

SilverDraghyeon: If you can read this mild rebuke, thank a teacher.

This is rather long, but it just felt appropriate.

Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues by Boby Dylan

Well, I was feelin' sad and feelin' blue,
I didn't know what in the world I was gonna do,
Them Communists they wus comin' around,
They wus in the air,
They wus on the ground.
They wouldn't gimme no peace. . .

So I run down most hurriedly
And joined up with the John Birch Society,
I got me a secret membership card
And started off a-walkin' down the road.
Yee-hoo, I'm a real John Bircher now!
Look out you Commies!

Now we all agree with Hitlers' views,
Although he killed six million Jews.
It don't matter too much that he was a Fascist,
At least you can't say he was a Communist!
That's to say like if you got a cold you take a shot of malaria.

Well, I wus lookin' everywhere for them gol-darned Reds.
I got up in the mornin' 'n' looked under my bed,
Looked in the sink, behind the door,
Looked in the glove compartment of my car.
Couldn't find 'em . . .

I wus lookin' high an' low for them Reds everywhere,
I wus lookin' in the sink an' underneath the chair.
I looked way up my chimney hole,
I even looked deep inside my toilet bowl.
They got away . . .

Well, I wus sittin' home alone an' started to sweat,
Figured they wus in my T.V. set.
Peeked behind the picture frame,
Got a shock from my feet, hittin' right up in the brain.
Them Reds caused it!
I know they did . . . them hard-core ones.

Well, I quit my job so I could work alone,
Then I changed my name to Sherlock Holmes.
Followed some clues from my detective bag
And discovered they wus red stripes on the American flag!
That ol' Betty Ross . . .

Well, I investigated all the books in the library,
Ninety percent of 'em gotta be burned away.
I investigated all the people that I knowed,
Ninety-eight percent of them gotta go.
The other two percent are fellow Birchers . . . just like me.

Now Eisenhower, he's a Russian spy,
Lincoln, Jefferson and that Roosevelt guy.
To my knowledge there's just one man
That's really a true American: George Lincoln Rockwell.
I know for a fact he hates Commies cus he picketed the movie Exodus.

Well, I fin'ly started thinkin' straight
When I run outa things to investigate.
Couldn't imagine doin' anything else,
So now I'm sittin' home investigatin' myself!
Hope I don't find out anything . . . hmm, great God!

People... People!

History books are history books. They teach history. It isn't required that they say we have a glorious, perfect nation. That seems kinda soviet.

Ok, So I am a history education student at Northern Michigan University, and I was sure I was about to walk into a huge unending flame war. Heck, I had my napalm and matches set and ready to go. America is not the shining beacon of freedom it proclaims to be, and I know what I will teach to our youth, its the ideals that must be transmitted. Thanks to all of you farkers who are against this kind of writing, and thanks even more to those who realize that objectivity in history is like Spam and Caviar being served side by side as snacks. It just doesn't happen.

From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:

Liberal \Lib"er*al\, n.
One who favors greater freedom in political or religious
matters; an opponent of the established systems; a reformer;
in English politics, a member of the Liberal party, so
called. Cf. {Whig}.

From WordNet (r) 1.7 [wn]:

liberal
adj 1: showing or characterized by broad-mindedness; "a broad
political stance"; "generous and broad sympathies"; "a
liberal newspaper"; "tolerant of his opponent's
opinions" [syn: {broad}, {tolerant}]
2: having political or social views favoring reform and
progress
3: tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism,
orthodoxy, or tradition [ant: {conservative}]

Apologies in advance if the formatting's farked beyond all belief.

And now political correctness is taking a nice new turn to the right, has anybody else noticed? The Dixie Chicks were blasted by alot of the media for not being politically correct, I'm sure Ann Coulter would have a different word for it, but that's what is was. Now we are going to chide our underpaid overworked educators for not being politically correct? This is blind madness, if anyone REALLY thinks our teachers are a bunch of commie sympathizers and terrorist lovers you are an ignorant fool and greatly underestimate your own countrymen, YOU are a threat to our greatness, as much as a sacharine, glossed over, incomplete history of our country is. It was said here before and I'll say it again, history ain't pretty, first the Clinton brand of political correctness reared it's ugly head, and now a different strain, but it's all the same close-mindedness.

After all, how are you going to correct the situation? How are you going to force more Flag-wrapped propaganda-spewing idols for our children into the system?


Affirmative action? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.........AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Then we can do the same to purge our banking and financial institutions, as well as the Pentagon, of false flag waving, tax-cut-loving neocons and balance those institutions with America-bashing, tarrif-loving, labor supporting liberals. Yes, this is how we should shape America, always balancew, always STRIVE for mediocrity. The American way? I THINK NOT

1. Because it happened makes it history.
2. Because it was bad doesn't make history bad.
3. Because historically we did bad things doesn't make us bad now.
4. If we don't learn about historically bad things we did, we may be unable to notice or prevent ourselves from doing bad things in the future.
5. Which would be bad.

so not teaching about our less than perfect history is much worse than just saying it like it is. As of we need more proof to know that truth is better than a lie.

i think the point there making is that teachers stick to the facts and truths. when i went to school, my us history teacher would let the class discuss current events in the class but he never took a side. one kid even asked his opinion on one matter and his response was "its been 3 months already, havent you noticed i havent revield my politial stand point?" he was right, its not his job to burn his opinion to kids heads positive or negetive. to this day, i dont know if he was a righty or lefty.

hmmm...looks like someone's catching on...

It couldn't be that kids are put in school to be cranked out 10 years or so later for the most part to work stupid jobs that ultimately make the rich richer? You don't suppose that might bring about a generally lower morale in the education system? That they're only teaching students how to make money and welcome to the machine? Naaah...

Hint: We've got to get over the ridiculous notion that we need "necessary evils." Slavery was a necessary evil, too.

Recognizing that they are devolutionary is a great first step.

I'd just like to say this: Glossing over all of the mistakes makes the citizens of the US ill-informed, and an ill-informed populace that is spoon-fed by their government most likely resembles China, East Germany, and the Soviet Union.

Mistakes are allowed to be aired if they are understood. We are here to ADVANCE society. Not just look back at how "freakin' cool" America is. That, "love it or leave it, everything is fine" attitude about America just makes us stagnate. It also arrives in the same kind of P.R. bullshiat tone that corporations use when they say, "Toxic sludge? There is no toxic sludge on that schoolyard!"

"Love it or leave it" is the farking attitude of the governements of the rest of the world. IT IS PRECISELY WHY PEOPLE PUT THEIR ASSES IN RICKETY BOATS AND SET SAIL EVEN TO THIS DAY FOR THE USA. Stop selling me this like it or leave it shiat. Propaganda whores.

And if you complain, remember to do it to our farking faces. This is America. Say it proud that you think that things are going wrong. Don't be a Johnny Depp or the Dixie Chicks and backhand it at some reporters from some bullshiat state run media. YOU KNOW THAT IT IS GOING TO BE TOUTED BY EVERY STATE RUN MEDIA OUTLET OUT THERE. HEADLINES WILL READ 'AMERICAN CITIZENS HATE THE USA.' farking morons. That is what they want you to say. YOU farkNUT. You were pulled in by the novelty. What a loser.

People were actually defending Johnny Depp and all the "I moved out" celebrities the other day. Why? Because he decided to take off and not say a word until his bank account was in another place? That, my friends, is REAL courage. Piss on your homeland, do nothing to improve it, and do it all from a distance. France deserves him if he is unwilling to tell the world his opinions in front of us all. It sounds like France. BE A FREAKIN' MAN. That is the definition of asshattery.

This country was founded on a few rebels. You are allowed to stand up and shout. If you're a not a US Citizen let me break it down for you. We may not like what all US Citizens say, matter of fact we down right hate some people for their statements out here, but we have the freakin' courage to appreciate our political rivals when they have the balls to say it. And we are airtight when we say it. It is guaranteed.

No one, and I repeat, no one, can sell me that "Mom and apple pie" shiat anymore. Look, this country has serious problems, talking around them DOES NOTHING TO CHANGE THEM. Propaganda is made mostly to prevent you from rocking the boat. America is made to let you rock the boat. SO ROCK THE FREAKING BOAT.

Just don't apologize to the rest of the world. Those farking jealous bastards sit at home at night wondering why they lost (because they are clueless about SO many things, but that is another thread entirely), and telling them that they are cool is TOTALLY NOT COOL. Let them figure it out. We got problems here that you need to work on. Get in the game. Don't sit around like a petulant 10th grader and complain. It is your responsibility as a US Citizen to FIX THE DAMN THING. Not biatch to the foreign exchange student.

You should rail on the US Govt. OFTEN. They are screwing up. But let me say this: YOU SHOULD RAIL ON THEM ON US SOIL ONLY. NOT IN FRONT OF SOME WHACKED OUT STATE RUN MEDIA THAT HAS A PUPPET AXE TO GRIND. Never apologize to foreign powers like we are all running on their opinions and this is all a mistake.

Those other nation assholes never said "THANK YOU" for dead US soldiers on their soil. SO YOU SHOULD SHUT THE fark UP, especially to France, because the committed not one resource to our current pickle. The only people they have ever looked out for is themselves. YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS. Don't assist the selfish, you get nothing out of it.

Don't stab your people in the back to make friends with people who don't support you, and only want to undermine you. THINK ABOUT IT.

Stay tuned for an important public message
We're ALL Devo

That is all

BobTheBuilder

Not to be a socialist at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head. --- Georges Clemenceau

... and who doesn't want head ??

YOU ARE ALL ANTI-SOCIALISTS

Holy Jesus, where to begin.

Okay, numero uno, point me at ONE politician who would say "no" to, "Would you support an initiative to stop our schools from teaching so much anti-American history and instead instil more patriotism in our children?" Just one. ... Right. Bipartisan my ass. I bet if we work REALLY hard, I bet we could get together a bipartisan movement to cut crime too!

Numero two-o, maybe it's just me, but doesn't this sound like a direct result of all the asshatted (and bipartisan) meddling with the school cirriculum for the last 50 years? They've censored and whitewashed the school books to the point that all they can talk about is the evil things that white men do - OF COURSE THEY'RE NEGATIVE. It's called reaping what you sow, people. Welcome to the world you created.

Numero three-o, we aren't a Democracy. We're a Representative Republic. If you are teaching the children we're a democracy, then you deserved to be stoned. The bad way.
Numero three-o, part two-o, could the children's lack of enthusiasm in our Republic (say I in the oh-so-optimistic hope that they're being taught proper civics) has to do with the fact that we saw the system fail spectacularly, in virtually all imaginable ways, 2 years ago? Kids DO remember these things, you know.

Numero four-o, we need the negativity in high school to make up for the unmitigated bull$hit they get fed through all elementary and high school. I'm still repulsed by some of the stuff we "teach" the kids, especially the almost idolistic worship of the Puritans, a group that mainly deserves to be spat upon.
(and if you're outraged by that statement, you were a victim too. Go do some research)

And numero five-o, there are so many OTHER things wrong with our school systems that nit-picking over exactly how positive or negative the cirriculum is should be the LAST thing we worry about. Let's get to the point that Japan and the Scandanavians aren't kicking our butts in every other subject first, huh?