Another great lie is one that got started by Ann Coulter and is now policy according to the Texas State Board of Education. Essentially, it's this: Joe McCarthy was a hero. Coulter said:
Everything you think you know about McCarthy is a hegemonic lie. Liberals denounced McCarthy because they were afraid of getting caught, so they fought back like animals to hide their own collaboration with a regime as evil as the Nazis.
Caught in what, exactly? Oh yes, that's right...anyone to the left of the Cult is a commie. Got it. It's also amusing that she brings up hegemony. The raison d'etre of the Cult is control through blind consensus. Once again, we see the Rove in action.
But this view of McCarthy is exactly what Texas school children are now going to learn...how he was a hero fighting against (in his own words) the treasonous Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. They will learn of a US government filled with dirty, stinking Commies many of whom "got away" and remained in power...in the form of the Democratic party. None of this, of course, is even close to being grounded in reality.
Coming a few years after we defeated the greatest army and threat the world had ever seen, McCarthy accused the Democrats of "twenty years of treason." He added twenty one after Eisenhower refused to acquiesce to McCarthy's demands. His paranoia knew no bounds as he went after the United States military. In one hearing he called Brigadier General Ralph W. Zicker, a WWII battlefield hero, a "five year old child not fit to wear the uniform." Ironic, considering McCarthy's outright lying about his own military record. His investigations into the US military turned the tide of public opinion well against him and his rampant alcoholism began to show in his Senate floor speeches. In fact, his constant changing numbers of how many communists were in the US government from the very beginning were evidence enough of his severe impairment and inability to think clearly.
None of this matters to that chapter of the Cult that has now changed the curriculum in Texas and perhaps nationwide. Commies were everywhere (ahh!!!!!!! look out...he looks funny...commie!!!) and still are. No matter that McCarthy was shown to be a liar very early on..he said pretty things so we loves him:) One need only spend a few minutes reading McCarthy's quotes to see that he was, in a myriad of ways, a founding father (along with Richard Nixon) of the Cult playbook. Say it and it's true...attack your opponent with what is, in fact, your greatest weakness (see the forthcoming comments below for what will be excellent examples of this), ignore facts, think with your guts and, above all, distrust anyone who doesn't think EXACTLY like you do. Joe McCarthy spawned the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. It's no wonder they are fighting tooth and nail to re-imagine him in history. All three of them, as well as the Cult, are still paranoid about Commies (ahh!!! Commies!!!) even years after communism FAILED and whatever remnants are left (save North Korea) are embracing capitalism or some quasi form of it.
I stated previously that I am nauseated by the clear heroification of McCarthy. Honestly, that's not much redeemable about him. Rarely do secondary school texts get it right when it comes to wrongdoing but the American Pageant does in their McCarthy entry. I wonder how many of the facts listed there will be completely left out. Ah well, no matter. Anyone critical of a Cult forefather is a lying Commie which would include yours truly. Cue the red herring of Venona.
As an educator, I am tasked to present the basic facts of what happened in any historical period. To leave out McCarthy's lying, alcoholism, assault on civil liberties, and attacks on distinguished members of the military like George Marshall would be historically dishonest. It would be like showing the happy go lucky side of Stalin and skip over the whole gulag thing. Stalin was an asshole who murdered people. McCarthy was an asshole who destroyed people's lives due to a psychosis that forced an ideology on people. This ideology has now morphed into a faux critical thinking devoid of reality.
Yet I would still be more interested, given all of the facts about McCarthy and what the Cult will now be teaching in Texas, what my students think about Joe McCarthy and why. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what my view is or what the Texas School Board's view is regarding McCarthy. It matters what they think and how they evaluate the facts.
Since close to 5 million students in Texas and perhaps more nation wide will be missing key facts, critical thinking skills have been hijacked. And that's the real fucking travesty.
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15 comments:
How are you able to post on a blog while you are working, educating kids?
Another great lie is one that got started by Ann Coulter and is now policy according to the Texas State Board of Education.
I know what Coulter had to say - she wrote it down. What I would like to know is what are the exact words in the proposed text adopted by the TSBE? You certainly haven't linked to it, so on what basis are you so wound up? Oh, that's right, some of your fellow Christians have been busy.
Yes, you can rant and rave all you want - that is your prerogative. I just wonder what FACTUAL base, if any, there is for all of this howling.
I wonder, because you have yet to describe it - just as you failed to describe what deregulation was responsible for the BP oil spill. Let alone how you were abused by Centerpoint Energy/RMR.
Instead we are treated to trip after trip into the fever swamp imagination of left-liberalism. All at a time when you should be crowing about the accomplishments of the last year and a half. [Funny how we STILL don't know what was in the Health Care Reform Act.]
If this is the best you can do now, I shudder to think what it will be like after November.
I haven't been able to find any actual change or looks as to what is actually going to be changed. All I hear is hysterics from the fringe left (yes, you are extreme fringe Mark). With the amount of information that I remember going through in history class, we sure didn't spend much time and detail on things like McCarthy, which are small footnotes in history. Why don't you save your ramblings and shrieking for after you actually know what the change is. If you have that info, can we see it?
"Caught in what, exactly? Oh yes, that's right...anyone to the left of the Cult is a commie."
Is this your idea of a joke, Marxy?
Anyone who calls themselves a communist is, gasp(!), a communist. Anyone who joins the (self named) Communist Party is calling themselves a communist.
Anyone who spied on behalf of the Soviet Union chose sides with the communists. Wouldn't that make them a communist too?
Or are we somehow supposed to think that someone who associates with communists, does the same things as communists, holds the same beliefs as communists, and does things on behalf of communists is somehow not a communist?
The only thing unusual about your Standard Response #7 (Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin' camera?) is that you're being proactive with it.
Many people joined the Communist Party during the thirties when it was the only thing that was fighting Fascism in Spain and Germany. They were not spies and they were not traitors. They had a particular political viewpoint and joined a party that they thought was like any other American political party. Many of them were ill-informed about about what was going on in the Soviet Union; they thought people who criticized the USSR were spewing venomous lies (much like people who insisted that initial reports of John Ensign's affair with an aide were a lie).
Years later, after many had renounced their Communist views and came to understand the error of their ways, Joe McCarthy attacked them for their their associations 20 or 30 years in the past and accused them of being traitors. Then he tried to force them to name other names and draw more innocent people into his net of lies and innuendo.
McCarthy wasn't evil because he was against Communism. He was evil because he lied about people, destroyed people's lives to increase his own political capital, blacklisted hundreds of writers and scientists who had never committed any crimes for views they had long since renounced.
Who coined the phrase "useful idiots"?
anon, Blogger allows you to compose a post and then set the time and date when you'd like it published. I wrote this after 12am last night and set it to post twelve hours later. And if I'm not too busy with school, I do post from time to time during the day.
juris, a simple google search will reveal that they essentially want a complete vindication of McCarthy. Here's McLeroy's note.
http://tfninsider.org/2009/10/21/more-mcleroy-malarkey-part-1/
I've been busy with school so I'll answer your BP questions with a new post that I have been fiddling with but is unfinished.
Ed, I have no doubt there were communist spies in our country in the 1950s. McCarthy, however, made it a partisan thing and saw demons everywhere. Don't you think his alcoholism affected his judgment?
other anon, it is usually attributed to Lenin but according to the LOC, they have not been able to verify this. Can you?
Who coined the phrase "useful idiots" was a rhetorical question.
OK M, I went to the link and it did NOT include the language from the text book, but there was a copy of a note from a board member. It read
[McCarthy] was basically vindicated.
Which you transformed into "the complete vindication of McCarthy."
I don't know about you, but I have never used "basically" and "completely" interchangeably. Must be some new form of English you are teaching.
And don't bother with a whole new post about BP and energy deregulation - until you answer the question you were asked: what regulation was relaxed/removed that led to this incident.
Put up, or shut up.
"Put up, or shut up."
C'mon juris, you know he can't do either.
Heroification...
You mean like claiming Obama was one of the good guys when he openly broke bankruptcy laws to favor the UAW?
You mean like claiming ACORN is the good guys when they were shown on video giving advice on how to conduct slavery and child prostitution at taxpayer expense?
You mean like claiming Nancy Pelosi is one of the good guys when she openly refuses to investigate blatant corruption by her supporters?
You mean like claiming Eric Holder is one of the good guys when he flatly refuses to prosecute an open and shut case of voter intimidation by his party's supporters?
You mean like claiming Tim Geithner is one of the good guys even though he can't be bothered to obey the very laws he is tasked with enforcing on others?
You mean like claiming Sonja Sotomayer is one of the good guys because she refused to adjudicate the law as written when it failed to favor her own personal prejudices?
The "real fucking travesty" is your open admiration for putting particular people in charge of the government because they can be counted on not to obey the fucking law.
Well Ed, it looks like M is doing his version of shutting up. He leaves the original accusation waving in the air and then stops defending it without ever retracting it.
Who DOES that remind me of?
"Who DOES that remind me of?"
I'm not sure who you're thinking of. There are so many potential candidates. My first thought was Markadelphia, because that is his primary M.O.
Who DOES that remind me of?
For some reason the phrase, "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan" keeps running through my head...
Damn guys, c'mon, WHO is the subject of this rant? Who never retracted any outrageous claim he made - whether drunk or sober?
It fits right with the way that M rails about the cult when he exhibits every behavior [on their part] that he whines about?
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