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Monday, May 07, 2012

Despite Reality, They Can't Let Go

I had lunch with an old friend and colleague last week who teaches 7th grade Social Studies at the junior high that my daughter will be attending next year. As we were talking shop, she told me that she was at the point in the year when she begins her unit on the Communist Revolution in China. Like many teachers around the state, she uses the film To Live in support of this unit to illustrate what happened in China during that time.

The film tells the story the Chinese Civil War, The Great Leap Forward, and The Cultural Revolution as seen through the eyes of one family. It's a gut wrenching piece that several students always have difficulty with due to its stark and very accurate portrayal of the horrors of communism. If you haven't seen the film, I highly recommend it. I've used it many times myself in class.

In fact, the film is so critical of Communism, that it has been banned in China. My colleague's entire unit takes this same critical approach as well. Twelve and thirteen year old kids in her class (and around the state as it is a Minnesota standard) see with their own eyes exactly what happens under totalitarian regimes.

As she told me of some of the reactions (some students have to cover their eyes or leave the room during some parts of the film), I began to think about the complaints from the right (in particular right wing blog pundits like Kevin Baker), that communism is soft pedaled in schools. Or that the teachers themselves are communists and indoctrinating our children into becoming little maoists. Given the fact that my colleague and many like her have taught this same unit for the last 15 years or more, I simply don't get from where this paranoia arises. It's just not true.

It would be one thing if Kevin and his followers were outliers but they aren't. Pastor Ed at my gym thinks the same thing. Former Navy Secretary and now Romney national security adviser John Lehman said recently,"We are seeing the Soviets pushing into the Arctic with no response from us." 

The Soviets? Really?

It seems that no amount of truth or facts can persuade them. They needs to have themselves a commie threat otherwise they simply can't identify themselves or their place in the world. Such a deep level of willful ignorance frustrates me on so many levels that it's pathetic.

What exists inside of these people that they simply can't let go despite reality?

1 comment:

Nikto said...

Yet at the same time conservatives are fretting about Chinese communism, American corporations are still sending thousands of American jobs to China.

Conservatives are demanding construction of a pipeline from Canada through America's heartland so that that oil from Canadian tarsands can completely bypass the American midwest, where it is now sold and helps mitigate gas prices, and go directly to the Gulf of Mexico where it will be put on tankers heading straight for China.

Conservatives are advocating drastic reductions in the size of government agencies that regulate food and product safety, trade, securities and corporate governance, which amounts to unilateral disarmament against Chinese control over (currently) American businesses.

More and more of these companies are basing their "headquarters" in foreign tax havens, stiffing the states and cities that provide education and a decent way of life for the employees of these companies.

Already China has a monopoly on the manufacture of computer chips, computers and electronics, which should give nightmares to anyone who's concerned about the security implications of a foreign country building all our computer security infrastructure.