Republicans have no policies that benefit anyone, so they engage in pointless culture wars that demonize marginalized communities. It's pathetic, abusive, hurtful and the worst thing is, it appears to be working (see the election of Glenn Youngkin in Virginia as Exhibit "A").
Oh yes! He made his base on the crazy CRT Theory pushed by Mothers for Liberty and school board protests. He also showed up in person at even the tiniest counties GOP events.
The problem was the Democratic candidate McCauliffe fed the monster by basically saying parents shouldn't be telling educators what to do (and I am not sure he went anywhere but major population centers.) That commercial about parents played non stop. People like Friedman joined the band wagon in FLA to continue the disarming of public education as a place where you can learn true history and also see the world thru different perspectives of how people live..
Instead of Florida, Friedman should have considered moving to Iran or Afghanistan, where he could appoint himself to the morality police, or better yet, the Taliban. Florida needs another fascist like it needs another hurricane.
Control of information is vital to the establishment and survival of an authoritarian state. None of this is new, it’s just newer to us in this country. Authoritarians know that their ideas will not survive in a marketplace of ideas, so the only solution is to control the marketplace in order to restrict the ideas.
And we have a rampant attempt at establishing an authoritarian state going on now. I always thought that the American people were too aware of their freedom and rights to be taken in by this kind of paternalistic demagoguery, but OMG was I wrong.
A year ago a financially secure, retired, White guy posted to our neighborhood listserve:
"I am interested in learning more about the CRITICAL RACE THEORY being taught in our middle and high schools. Are there any parents of students who can provide me with any materials? Are there any concerned parents who would like to meet to discuss this issue?"
I replied on the listserve:
"I don't think critical race theory needs to be capitalized except by Fox news, which intends to rally White people to protect ourselves for another few years against talking about how our laws have historically been applied to Black people.
"White people don't talk about our accrued wealth from centuries of slavery. Critical race theory does. Critical race theory talks about how our laws have excluded Black people from voting (as in modern-day Georgia), and from owning property ("red-lining" by banks), and from the GI Bill after WWII, which raised millions of White people into the middle class -- but was not opened to Black people.
"Now that it is clear that rich White people in power simply give all the tax breaks to rich White people, it doesn't work for them to argue "economics" to voters anymore.
"Now with police on tape across the country brutalizing and killing Black people with a heritage of impunity passed down from the lynching years, it doesn't work to argue "crime" to voters anymore.
"Now that hundreds of White people are getting misdemeanors for overrunning and looting the capitol -- some trying to murder capitol security -- it doesn't work to argue "law and order" to voters anymore.
"So rich White people in power turned to an old academic term which White people have never paid attention to before. As such, critical race theory could be redefined and re-labelled as the new, worst-imaginable nightmare from the closet of White fears. And until critical race theory is known for what it is, this strategy should temporarily work on White voters in upcoming elections.
"Thanks for raising a historical issue which needs the present light of day."
I got a ton of private Thank You emails from mostly White neighbors -- they had had no idea what to say.
Otis Madison explained that the end goal of racism by White people is really to control the behavior of other White people.
It's clear to me this guy is suffering from an emotional disorder. Since school boards and librarians aren't equipped to be therapists, systems must be put in place to make it onerous to challenge books. $50-100 per challenge, and the challenge must include a minimum of 250 words documenting, with page and paragraph numbers, the "objectionable" content. Slow that roll down. These folks are mentally ill. There's no other term for it.
Control. It's about control of the (children's) thought process and access to history. That's the RW way! Now look, another raft of RW terror cells in a movement kicked off on Tucker Carlson. How apropos.
Note the hyperbole in No Left Turn's call to action, likening the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ reading material in schools to that of genocide and war. This is the language they are using to attract followers. It's as dangerous as it is absurd.
Call it what it is, an attempt to prove that Clay County can set the model for backward thinking and right wing indoctrination. Why? Because nothing terrifies Republicans more than critical thinking.
So who is bankrolling this churlish troll? What would Friedman do if a book on the Holocaust was removed because the petitioner cited that it "makes white people uncomfortable"?
This is absolutely abhorrent. After the midterms our local school board now has 3 members who campaigned on anti-CRT and anti-LGBTQ platforms. None have any sort of background in education. I'm expecting a similar school library purge, although our county librarians are vehemently against any form of censorship and so far have been able to fend off challenges. I can't believe the man in the article has a 15 year old. He must never listen to anything his son says or pick up any clues from him at all.... "According to Friedman, students should not be "focused on kissing, or petting or anything else in that general territory." Are you kidding me? Yeah, good thing 15 y.o.'s never think about that kind of stuff & are only exposed to it thru award winning literature. FFS.
They are not stopping with books. Community libraries are being re-located away from schools now.
A meeting place or safe place to do homework is gone. After school programs are not funded.
On another front, the military has expanded its Junior ROTC program into (mostly Black and poor) schools, and they are writing their own history books ! See the article "When Military Training is not an Elective," NYT December 11th, front page. Read the whole thing and weep.
Reactionaries are organized, so they are succeeding at censoring books. I'll repeat, they are organized. How are we organizing to protect our education system, to teach children to think for themselves, to support equity and diversity? What is our messaging? Please, let's focus on what we are going to do to RESIST.
Reactionaries are using effective propaganda techniques. Among these is truth inoculation to blame progressives for what they are doing and are preparing to do. Here is an example from Judd's informative and terrifying post for today:
"No Left Turn in Education was founded in 2020 by Elana Yaron Fishbein. 'Public schools are starting to resemble re-education camps and our cities have turned into the killing fields,' the group wrote on Facebook. "It's beginning to feel like Pol Pot's Cambodia.' Fishbein says there are evil forces focused on 'getting to o'r kids, brainwashing them, indoctrinating them, and making them [a] brownshirt.' Friedman said he learned about Fishbein when she appeared on Tucker Carlson's show."
The truth is that authoritarians want schools to teach accepted white christian nationalist "family values" doctrine and only that. They are doing this with blunt force and motivating their people with outrage. Combined with their gun culture and media juggernaut they are building a movement of brownshirts. There are other ominous signs of these times, like the forcing of kids into R.O.T.C. for military indoctrination and recruitment. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/11/us/jrotc-schools-mandatory-automatic-enrollment.html
Progressives need to organize and deliver effective messaging. We must repeat it, show up at school board and other meetings, support our teachers, students, librarians and public servants so they don't stand alone. We need to pick some of the banned books that are literary treasures, teach and promote them independently of the censors.
Teachers, librarians, school board members and others are quitting in droves. We must stop this or we will have private schools for right wing profiteering only and no public education available. If we don't organize we will have tfg or Insanetis as president with a congress and courts on their side.
I take courage from our relative success at the mid-terms. Let's build a movement of sanity and common sense at the grassroots.
Here is an example of such organizing from Indivisible Eastside in Seattle.
Republicans have no policies that benefit anyone, so they engage in pointless culture wars that demonize marginalized communities. It's pathetic, abusive, hurtful and the worst thing is, it appears to be working (see the election of Glenn Youngkin in Virginia as Exhibit "A").
Oh yes! He made his base on the crazy CRT Theory pushed by Mothers for Liberty and school board protests. He also showed up in person at even the tiniest counties GOP events.
The problem was the Democratic candidate McCauliffe fed the monster by basically saying parents shouldn't be telling educators what to do (and I am not sure he went anywhere but major population centers.) That commercial about parents played non stop. People like Friedman joined the band wagon in FLA to continue the disarming of public education as a place where you can learn true history and also see the world thru different perspectives of how people live..
Instead of Florida, Friedman should have considered moving to Iran or Afghanistan, where he could appoint himself to the morality police, or better yet, the Taliban. Florida needs another fascist like it needs another hurricane.
Fight fire with fire. A progressive should challenge the Bible and every remotely conservative book in the library. The policy will change.
Yes! I feel the same way!!!
Control of information is vital to the establishment and survival of an authoritarian state. None of this is new, it’s just newer to us in this country. Authoritarians know that their ideas will not survive in a marketplace of ideas, so the only solution is to control the marketplace in order to restrict the ideas.
This is really the root of it. People will support a dictator if he seems to keep them safe.
And we have a rampant attempt at establishing an authoritarian state going on now. I always thought that the American people were too aware of their freedom and rights to be taken in by this kind of paternalistic demagoguery, but OMG was I wrong.
Perhaps challenging any books that glorify the Confederacy ? Christianity?
Certainly challenge any biography of Generals Lee, Jackson, or lesser known confederates. I’m sure there are plenty still on shelves.
And then we become Friedman in the otherside.
History is history. In your line of thinking, no books on imperial Japan or Nazi Germany. Etc.
A year ago a financially secure, retired, White guy posted to our neighborhood listserve:
"I am interested in learning more about the CRITICAL RACE THEORY being taught in our middle and high schools. Are there any parents of students who can provide me with any materials? Are there any concerned parents who would like to meet to discuss this issue?"
I replied on the listserve:
"I don't think critical race theory needs to be capitalized except by Fox news, which intends to rally White people to protect ourselves for another few years against talking about how our laws have historically been applied to Black people.
"White people don't talk about our accrued wealth from centuries of slavery. Critical race theory does. Critical race theory talks about how our laws have excluded Black people from voting (as in modern-day Georgia), and from owning property ("red-lining" by banks), and from the GI Bill after WWII, which raised millions of White people into the middle class -- but was not opened to Black people.
"Now that it is clear that rich White people in power simply give all the tax breaks to rich White people, it doesn't work for them to argue "economics" to voters anymore.
"Now with police on tape across the country brutalizing and killing Black people with a heritage of impunity passed down from the lynching years, it doesn't work to argue "crime" to voters anymore.
"Now that hundreds of White people are getting misdemeanors for overrunning and looting the capitol -- some trying to murder capitol security -- it doesn't work to argue "law and order" to voters anymore.
"So rich White people in power turned to an old academic term which White people have never paid attention to before. As such, critical race theory could be redefined and re-labelled as the new, worst-imaginable nightmare from the closet of White fears. And until critical race theory is known for what it is, this strategy should temporarily work on White voters in upcoming elections.
"Thanks for raising a historical issue which needs the present light of day."
I got a ton of private Thank You emails from mostly White neighbors -- they had had no idea what to say.
Otis Madison explained that the end goal of racism by White people is really to control the behavior of other White people.
Thank you. It's mostly reflected, not original.
It is condensed from an explanation I heard on The Root, my favorite Black newsletter.
It's clear to me this guy is suffering from an emotional disorder. Since school boards and librarians aren't equipped to be therapists, systems must be put in place to make it onerous to challenge books. $50-100 per challenge, and the challenge must include a minimum of 250 words documenting, with page and paragraph numbers, the "objectionable" content. Slow that roll down. These folks are mentally ill. There's no other term for it.
This is insane, and quite frightening that one man can work the system in such a way to impose his beliefs on so many.
Control. It's about control of the (children's) thought process and access to history. That's the RW way! Now look, another raft of RW terror cells in a movement kicked off on Tucker Carlson. How apropos.
Why aren’t we all challenging Tucker Carlson’s book(s)? Let’s give that clown a taste of cancel culture.
Good idea. Clowns need a taste of clownage.
Note the hyperbole in No Left Turn's call to action, likening the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ reading material in schools to that of genocide and war. This is the language they are using to attract followers. It's as dangerous as it is absurd.
Call it what it is, an attempt to prove that Clay County can set the model for backward thinking and right wing indoctrination. Why? Because nothing terrifies Republicans more than critical thinking.
"Friedman is the president and founder of the Florida chapter of No Left Turn in Education, a right-wing educational group."
Please call these organizations what they are: extremist. Not "right wing". The latter label normalizes extremism.
A right wing TERRORIST group!
So who is bankrolling this churlish troll? What would Friedman do if a book on the Holocaust was removed because the petitioner cited that it "makes white people uncomfortable"?
Yes, who is funding him? That’s the key.
This is absolutely abhorrent. After the midterms our local school board now has 3 members who campaigned on anti-CRT and anti-LGBTQ platforms. None have any sort of background in education. I'm expecting a similar school library purge, although our county librarians are vehemently against any form of censorship and so far have been able to fend off challenges. I can't believe the man in the article has a 15 year old. He must never listen to anything his son says or pick up any clues from him at all.... "According to Friedman, students should not be "focused on kissing, or petting or anything else in that general territory." Are you kidding me? Yeah, good thing 15 y.o.'s never think about that kind of stuff & are only exposed to it thru award winning literature. FFS.
They are not stopping with books. Community libraries are being re-located away from schools now.
A meeting place or safe place to do homework is gone. After school programs are not funded.
On another front, the military has expanded its Junior ROTC program into (mostly Black and poor) schools, and they are writing their own history books ! See the article "When Military Training is not an Elective," NYT December 11th, front page. Read the whole thing and weep.
Reactionaries are organized, so they are succeeding at censoring books. I'll repeat, they are organized. How are we organizing to protect our education system, to teach children to think for themselves, to support equity and diversity? What is our messaging? Please, let's focus on what we are going to do to RESIST.
Reactionaries are using effective propaganda techniques. Among these is truth inoculation to blame progressives for what they are doing and are preparing to do. Here is an example from Judd's informative and terrifying post for today:
"No Left Turn in Education was founded in 2020 by Elana Yaron Fishbein. 'Public schools are starting to resemble re-education camps and our cities have turned into the killing fields,' the group wrote on Facebook. "It's beginning to feel like Pol Pot's Cambodia.' Fishbein says there are evil forces focused on 'getting to o'r kids, brainwashing them, indoctrinating them, and making them [a] brownshirt.' Friedman said he learned about Fishbein when she appeared on Tucker Carlson's show."
The truth is that authoritarians want schools to teach accepted white christian nationalist "family values" doctrine and only that. They are doing this with blunt force and motivating their people with outrage. Combined with their gun culture and media juggernaut they are building a movement of brownshirts. There are other ominous signs of these times, like the forcing of kids into R.O.T.C. for military indoctrination and recruitment. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/11/us/jrotc-schools-mandatory-automatic-enrollment.html
Progressives need to organize and deliver effective messaging. We must repeat it, show up at school board and other meetings, support our teachers, students, librarians and public servants so they don't stand alone. We need to pick some of the banned books that are literary treasures, teach and promote them independently of the censors.
Teachers, librarians, school board members and others are quitting in droves. We must stop this or we will have private schools for right wing profiteering only and no public education available. If we don't organize we will have tfg or Insanetis as president with a congress and courts on their side.
I take courage from our relative success at the mid-terms. Let's build a movement of sanity and common sense at the grassroots.
Here is an example of such organizing from Indivisible Eastside in Seattle.
https://www.takeaction.network/xactions/ie/22-12-12-A2