Lynne Cheney
A few years ago I was involved in a class discussion about history education in the United States. The class was "History of Feminism in the United States" so naturally most of the students where progressively minded. My professor, who I adore, was talking about the "National Standards for History" developed in the 90's. She was discussing the controversy that surrounded its formation, when the conversation turned to the topic of Lynne Cheney. Ms. Cheney, who was lovingly referred to by my professor as "the fascist," raised quite a stink over the new standards, complaining that they did not focus enough on the positive aspects of American history but instead highlighted the struggles for civil rights and liberty. Apparently the standards spoke too much about racism, oppression and multiculturalism, which show the darker side of American's past and present.I bring this up because last year Ms. Cheney, who currently enjoys the powers afforded to her by her husband, raised another stink about history education. This time the source of her outrage was a booklet designed by the Department of Education to help parents teach their children about American history. At issue, again, is the use of the National Standards for History, that Ms. Cheney intensely opposes. As a result of her intervention, the 300,000 copies of the booklets were destroyed. Your reading the wrong blog if you don't see anything wrong with this fascist-like enforcement of a myopic American history; created, by right wing nuts like Cheney, to manufacture an illusory ideal of American history that cultivate a sort of provincial patriotism. I don't take these types of actions lightly and neither should anyone else. The control of education at all levels is a fundamental role in the manufacturing of consent (to use Chomsky's term) that inevitably challenges the capability of the populist to maintain our democracy. This is just one small example of the rampant right wing lunacy that has infested our government.
More information:
http://hnn.us/articles/8418.html
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/10/006.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1008-05.htm
Posted by on 02/17 at 11:46 AM
Next entry: The Beekeeper Release Party
Previous entry: Oh Yeah, that's right