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U.S. Politics: Are You Threadening Me Master Jedi?


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2 hours ago, Ormond said:

I think the stories you have seen are probably a bit hyperbolic. I can find lots of references to complaints that textbooks -- especially in Texas because of their awful statewide book commission -- downplay slavery, but I can't find any reference to it being completely omitted.

Virginia history books for high schoolers had no mention of slaver at all in the section on the Civil War, at least in the days people I know were in hs there back in the 1960's.

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6 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Virginia history books for high schoolers had no mention of slaver at all in the section on the Civil War, at least in the days people I know were in hs there back in the 1960's.

By the time I was in HS in Virginia in the 1990s, Howard Zinn was required reading.  That may have changed again. That was also NoVa. My mom starting teaching American History in Herndon in 1970.  I can ask her what she remembers.  But she was teaching a sort of experimental class and I think she got to make up a lot of her curriculum - things weren't as centralized then, so she may have been able to pick her textbook/readings.

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On 1/25/2018 at 0:09 PM, Rippounet said:

All in all though, the main reason it's worse in the US is because a huge part of the population still buys the "benevolent superpower" crap, while Europeans are far more clear-eyed/cynical as regards the foreign policy of their country. Official propaganda is actually not that different, but patriotism in the US prevents much reckoning from being done.

I think we have in this country a political establishment that often leans interventionist. And unfortunately, it's not always in the Republican Party. Certainly you have people like Susan Powers, who I'm not particularly fond of, who are inclined to military interventionism. Or take for instance, Madeline Albright, getting on Colin Powell's case about his reluctance to use military force.

Both sides of course have their tactics to sell an intervention. With Republicans it's basically say how much you love America and then have somebody play a sad old country song and bingo, you can put thousands of combat troops wherever. With liberals just say its for this humanitarian reason and you'll get support. Now certainly I want to help others and not turn a blind eye to others, and I think at some point, you may have to intervene. But, I think we should be extremely, extremely skeptical of said interventions and wonder if our leaders have really thought all the complicating factors through. When military intervention is involved I get a bit skittish.

I think overall a lot of military interventions have not gone well. And some of them have bitten us in the ass in the long term I'd argue. I think Iran is the classic case. I have a very poor view of military interventionism. And quite frankly as somebody  that has humped a rifle and pack, I have a bit of a resentment against knuckle heads that come up with grand schemes, yet don't know the practical difficulties of war fighting, and all the shit that can go wrong.

And I hope to run the interventionist wing out of the Democratic Party. It will certainly be something I look for in candidates. And I find it a bit concerning that a few liberals are willing to play nicely with neo cons because they criticize Trump. I don't trust these people, and I think it would be a mistake for Democrats to allow them to weasel their way back into a Democratic Party.

To be clear, I'm not an isolationist or an America first er, but I'd hope at some point we'll be able to scale back much of the interventionism, which it would seem many of the policy elites love.

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Re: whitewashed history in textbooks. It's not just slavery that gets minimized and euphemized. Apparently Native Americans "decided to relocate to make room for new settlements." No broken treaties or germ apocalypse or genocide dressed up as national destiny there.

Jesus Creeping Shit y'all. I suppose on the next page it says that the benevolent white people magnanimously named their capital's football team in their honor.

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I've been hearing these types of stories and also stories about how Texas sways the text book market through sheer volume and buying power, etc. I talked to my cousin who is a teacher and who (at the time) had girls in grade/middle school. She said it wasn't as big a deal as I was hearing because they mainly use tablets for text books and can pick and chose material instead of relying on one printed text book. I was surprised to hear this, but perhaps I shouldn't have been. I don't know if this comforts or alarms me, to be honest. I have no idea what criteria schools are using or how much agency each teacher gets in teaching his own class and selecting materials. etc.

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3 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

By the time I was in HS in Virginia in the 1990s, Howard Zinn was required reading.  That may have changed again. That was also NoVa. My mom starting teaching American History in Herndon in 1970.  I can ask her what she remembers.  But she was teaching a sort of experimental class and I think she got to make up a lot of her curriculum - things weren't as centralized then, so she may have been able to pick her textbook/readings.

Howard Zinn was our textbook for AP US History in Bedford County, Virginia public schools circa 2000.  I always chalked that up to our teacher being a closet liberal (he made it a point never state his opinion on current politics - smart move in a heavily conservative and primarily rural area) but maybe there was a wider effort in the state.  I don't know what the kids in regular US History had for a book, though.  And Zinn, of course, isn't shy about pointing out America's historical misdeeds.  I probably got more out of that class than anything else I took in High School because up to that point 'USA USA USA #1' was not a sentiment that had ever been challenged in my previous 11 years in the public school system.  Was a bit like a course I took in college on the historical New Testament in terms of disabusing you of some false notions about how it all came about.  

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Our "libertarian" overlords think we're all dumber than a box of rocks.

https://www.vox.com/explainers/2018/1/25/16904136/corporate-america-tax-cut-celebrations-explained

Quote

Corporate America is beginning to frame any positive announcement in ways that Republicans say is evidence their tax bill is already boosting the economy. The truth, however, is that the economic trends at work long predate the passage of the tax bill — or even Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The real change is political.

 

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14 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Our "libertarian" overlords think we're all dumber than a box of rocks.

https://www.vox.com/explainers/2018/1/25/16904136/corporate-america-tax-cut-celebrations-explained

 

Corporation are, by design, Profits Uber Alles. Anyone who thought they would of been some defense are ignorant of history. 

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1 hour ago, Mexal said:

Motherboard FOIAed Ajit Pai's official calendar leading up to the net neutrality decision and as you would expect, it's full of calls/meetings with telecom companies, telecom trade groups, telecom-funded think tanks, and right-wing media. Complete shill.

Doesn't it still have to be voted on in the Senate? 

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1 hour ago, Mexal said:

White House's proposal on immigration. Includes pathway to legal status for 1.8m Dreamers along with $25b for a wall/security, more money for more personnel (ICE, border patrol, immigration lawyers/judges), limit family migration to spouses and minor children, end visa lottery system.

Hell for that much they might as well demand a path way to citizenship for the Dreamers and any undocumented people who've been here for more than 5 years. 

How long would a wall in line with what Trump campaigned for take to build? If it's several years you can accept it for now and not appropriate further funds for it in the future.

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14 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Doesn't it still have to be voted on in the Senate? 

No what is in the Senate is trying to overturn the ruling like the Republican did with several of Obama administration rulings at the end of 2016. The name slips me and the timeframe is limited (I think 6 months).

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WASHINGTON — President Trump ordered the firing last June of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation, according to four people told of the matter, but ultimately backed down after the White House counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive.

Trump Ordered Mueller Fired, but Backed Off When White House Counsel Threatened to Quit https://nyti.ms/2FkhQqF

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2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Hell for that much they might as well demand a path way to citizenship for the Dreamers and any undocumented people who've been here for more than 5 years. 

How long would a wall in line with what Trump campaigned for take to build? If it's several years you can accept it for now and not appropriate further funds for it in the future.

Three years for environmental reviews and studies.

1 year for bids, then Two years for design, then two years for property acquisition. Six years of legal challenges (to environmental reviews, State jurisdictional lawsuits, and challenges to eminent domain property acquisition)

Then once you have ceremonial groundbreaking in 2026 or so:

four years building infrastructural construction access roads and staging areas.

four years of actual wall construction, (twelve plus if the construction is more sequential rather than simultaneous, for instance if there’s only 50 simultaneous construction sites instead of 500 simultaneous construction sites it could be decades to finish).

Four years of clearing out staging areas and temporary access roads and building permanent access infrastructure.

2 years of testing 

Finally ribbon cutting ceremony in 2040 with the wall officially opened.

 

by the way. A wall that costs 25 billion and takes twenty two years to be built is certainly impressive.

but any good drug czar knows that a six meter diameter tunnel boring machine only costs about 6-8 million for the machine, and only needs about twenty people to operate the machinery creating the tunnel. you could buy dozens of them and have lots of long, high quality tunnels ready long before the wall ever is finished.

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