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Texans Riding Dinosaurs May Sound Funny, But the 'Flintstones' Are Threatening to Turn Our Democracy Into an Idiocracy

BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White

A majority of Texans do not believe that humans "developed from earlier species of animals," according to a University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll published Wednesday. The article publishing the findings, called "Meet the Flintstones," noted that one-third of respondents believe that dinosaurs and humans roamed the earth at the same time.

As a reader of a progressive site such as BuzzFlash, you may be laughing at the poor fools in Texas. But it's not just Texas Republicans who responded thusly. A whopping 46 percent of self-identified Democrats in the study disagreed with that evolution question as well.

Furthermore, the anti-science disease is spreading geographically. Laugh it up, but in ten years, this story could be about your state. What's going on here, and how are these backward beliefs coming to a public school near you?

In last weekend's New York Times Magazine, the cover story purported to answer the question of just how Christian the founders of America were. And the story did touch on that fascinating, though ultimately unanswerable question. But the larger question was about how the religious right is entering the curricula of the vast majority of public schools in this country via the Lone Star State. Contributing writer Russell Shorto explains the overwhelming influence of Texas (emphasis mine):

The state’s $22 billion education fund is among the largest educational endowments in the country. Texas uses some of that money to buy or distribute a staggering 48 million textbooks annually — which rather strongly inclines educational publishers to tailor their products to fit the standards dictated by the Lone Star State... [it] was one of the first states to adopt statewide curriculum guidelines, back in 1998, and the guidelines it came up with... were clear, broad and inclusive enough that many other states used them as a model in devising their own...

Tom Barber, who worked as the head of social studies at the three biggest textbook publishers before running his own editorial company, says, “Texas was and still is the most important and most influential state in the country.” And James Kracht , a professor at Texas A&M’s college of education and a longtime player in the state’s textbook process, told me flatly, “Texas governs 46 or 47 states.”

The man running this anti-knowledge side show at the Texas School Board is a dentist and creationist named Don McLeroy. Last year, the fight was all about science teachers being forced to stress the weakness of evolutionary theory in the classroom. Now they're working on turning conservative activists into heroes and demonizing liberals:

McLeroy moved that Margaret Sanger, the birth-control pioneer, be included because she “and her followers promoted eugenics,” that language be inserted about Ronald Reagan’s “leadership in restoring national confidence” following Jimmy Carter’s presidency and that students be instructed to “describe the causes and key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.” The injection of partisan politics into education went so far that at one point another Republican board member burst out in seemingly embarrassed exasperation, “Guys, you’re rewriting history now!” Nevertheless, most of McLeroy’s proposed amendments passed by a show of hands.

Finally, the board considered an amendment to require students to evaluate the contributions of significant Americans. The names proposed included Thurgood Marshall, Billy Graham, Newt Gingrich, William F. Buckley Jr., Hillary Rodham Clinton and Edward Kennedy. All passed muster except Kennedy, who was voted down.

A series of Harris interactive polls show that belief in evolution has actually declined over the past decade or two. The consensus in the scientific community is that Intelligent Design and creationism are winning over the American public.

Part of that success undoubtedly comes from the effort to infiltrate school textbooks and curricula. The bottom line is that the religious right found the path to ascension among Texas' school guidelines, and they're not going to stop with Darwin.

So how long until we start seeing the majority of Americans praising Phyllis Schlafly as an American hero while being unfamiliar with the works of some guy named Teddy Kennedy? How long until kids start reciting that we are a strictly Christian nation, and begin defining citizens who practice Buddhism or worship Allah as "un-American"?

How long until law students from Liberty University convince the Supreme Court that the Constitution (which does not refer to Christianity) and the Declaration of Independence (which refers to a creator and "Nature's God") are not distinct documents, and that therefore the United States was founded expressly to allow Christianity to flourish, and not to provide for religious freedom? How long until that court has to start taking Biblical law into account when making decisions of constitutionality?

It begins in our public schools, but it ends up in every nook and cranny of our nation's ideological fabric. The thing that Shorto's piece establishes for me is not whether or not our founding fathers were particularly religious. It says that this is no "slippery slope," but a concerted effort to remake the nation in Billy Graham's image.

The effort to re-write American History 101 in such a light may begin in education, but it ends in embarrassing polls like the one released in the Texas Tribune yesterday. And if we laugh it off, we're sealing the fate of our idiocracy.

BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS




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The gospel of greed as its

The gospel of greed as its preachers were called in the good old days have combined corporate worship with Christian worship so their suckers can't tell the difference.I have to disagree with evolutionist on one point,they say evolution can't reverse itself but I do think some people are turning back into brainless apes.Brainwashing worked in Russia and its doing a good job of working in America .

 

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Its fun playing with Texas, a progressive site such as BuzzFlash, you may be laughing at the poor fools in Texas. But it's not just Texas Republicans who responded thusly. A whopping 46 percent of self-identified Democrats in the study disagreed with that evolution question as well. Nice information classifieds |advertising|walk in bath tub

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It needs more educations.

It needs more educations. It's not worth laughing but reflection.

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The man running this

The man running this anti-knowledge side show at the Texas School Board is a dentist and creationist named Don McLeroy.

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It's typesetting People!

There was a time when TEXAS did have a material affect on what the nation learned, or didn't learn. That was when the books had to be laid out and typeset. Now that books are electronically mastered and printed on demand there can be as many editions as you want. But then, that was also when the school book publishers would tell TEXAS, "No, we have to sell this everywhere, not just Texas."

 

Just be sure that your local school board, or state buys the edition that you want your children to read and be tested on.

We'll just leave Texas as the backwater that they are, knowing their graduates can't compete!

 

Cheers, Flageek

the reich

How glad I am that I have no school-age children!  It's enough to make a person think about home-schooling.

nightingale rocks

Nightingale hits it right on the head,the Fundamentalist are useful idiots.They are too stupid to see they are being used by their "Ministers" and big business.The gospel of greed as its preachers were called in the good old days have combined corporate worship with Christian worship so their suckers can't tell the difference.I have to disagree with evolutionist on one point,they say evolution can't reverse itself but I do think some people are turning back into brainless apes.Brainwashing worked in Russia and its doing a good job of working in America .

Apes are "hardly

Apes are "hardly brainless"... At some point in our evolutionary past, the forerunners of modern man branched off and both ape and man lineages have been progressing through the course of time. Anybody that believes in creationism or 'intelligent design' is very poorly schooled in the sciences.

IOKIYAC

Just how loud would these "good" Christians be yelling if, say, some Muslim nation was eradicating all non-Islamic influences from their society? And then using that process to justify not selling oil to the West? They would be calling for war - that others would get to fight in their names.

I'm just glad that my kids are out of school.

Nothing but useful idiots

I hope that not too many people jump to the conclusion that the Religious Righties are actually in control of anything or have any real power.  They are merely useful idiots for the corporate overlords to control the minds of the masses, distracting and confusing the little people while also keeping them ignorant.  The corporate overlords could and would completely discredit the Religious Righties in a heartbeat if they were not so useful.  As long as Religious Righties follow the script explaining that total corporate control over the society is not only consistent with but follows from Christian teaching and values, they will be provided with a cozy place in the corporatists' world.