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Gary Shteyngart on Walter Isaacson’s Biography of Elon Musk

By dianeravitch
September 23, 2023 //
22

Gary Shteyngart is a successful novelist and author whose family emigrated from the Soviet Union when he was a child. He reviewed Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Elon Musk in The Guardian. On the site formerly known as Twitter, he described his piece as “my review of a dull book about a silly but dangerous man.” Please open the link and read the full review.

He began:

Who or what is to blame for Elon Musk? Famed biographer of intellectually muscular men Walter Isaacson’s dull, insight-free doorstop of a book casts a wide but porous net in search of an answer. Throughout the tome, Musk’s confidantes, co-workers, ex-wives and girlfriends present a DSM-5’s worth of psychiatric and other theories for the “demon moods” that darken the lives of his subordinates, and increasingly the rest of us, among them bipolar disorder, OCD, and the form of autism formerly known as Asperger’s. But the idea that any of these conditions are what makes Musk an “asshole” (another frequently used descriptor of him in the book), while also making him successful in his many pursuits, is an insult to all those affected by them who manage to change the world without leaving a trail of wounded people, failing social networks and general despair behind them. The answer, then, must lie elsewhere.

There’s a lot to work with here, but it doesn’t make reading this book any easier. Isaacson comes from the “his eyes lit up” school of cliched writing, the rest of his prose workmanlike bordering on AI. I drove my espresso machine hard into the night to survive both craft and subject matter. It feels as though, for instance, there are hundreds of pages from start to finish relaying the same scene: Musk trying to reduce the cost of various mundane objects so that he can make more money and fulfil his dream of moving himself (and possibly the lot of us) to Mars, where one or two examples would have been enough. To his credit, Isaacson is a master at chapter breaks, pausing the narrative when one of Musk’s rockets explodes or he gets someone pregnant, and then rewarding the reader with a series of photographs that assuages the boredom until the next descent into his protagonist’s wild but oddly predictable life. Again, it’s not all the author’s fault. To go from Einstein to Musk in only five volumes is surely an indication that humanity isn’t sending Isaacson its best….

Highest on the list of things Musk won’t shut up about is Mars. “We need to get to Mars before I die.” “We got to give this a shot, or we’re stuck on earth forever.” The messianic part of the Muskiverse is his attempt to put 140m miles between himself and his father as he tries to turn humanity into a “multiplanetary civilization” even though we are having a hard enough time making it as a uniplanetary one. But Musk also knows what’s keeping us from reaching the lifeless faraway planet, and he’s not afraid of telling us: “Unless the woke-mind virus … is stopped, civilisation will never become interplanetary.” There is a far more interesting book shadowing this one about the way our society has ceded its prerogatives to the Musks of the world. There’s a lot to be said for Musk’s tenacity, for example his ability to break through Nasa’s cost-plus bureaucracy. But is it worth it when your saviour turns out to be the world’s loudest crank?

Categories Billionaires, Character, Democracy, Disruption, Economy, Ethics, Extremism

Ron DeSantis, Hypocrite

By dianeravitch
August 23, 2023 //
19

On August 20, the New York Times published a story about how Ron DeSantis joined the “ruling class” but now campaigns against it. His story is shot through with hypocrisy. He paints himself as the public school kid from middle-class Dunedin, Florida, surrounded by snobs from private schools who looked down on him. Yet now as governor, he treats public schools and their teachers with contempt and expanded vouchers to pay billions of taxpayer dollars for kids to go to private schools, including high-income families.

Why is he, the public school kid, subsidizing private and religious schools? Why is he so hostile to public schools? He complains that public schools indoctrinate their students yet he’s willing to send kids to religious schools whose purpose is indoctrination. Why does he subsidize the tuition of rich kids who go to private schools? Aren’t those the kind of kids who treated him with condescension?

Early last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis nestled into his chair onstage in Naples, Fla., to explain to an audience of the would-be conservative elite his journey through the reigning liberal one they hoped to destroy. His host was Larry P. Arnn, the president of Hillsdale College, a small Christian school in southern Michigan that has become an academic hub of the Trump-era right. His subject was Yale University, where Mr. DeSantis was educated and where, as he tells it, he first met the enemy.

The story begins:

“I’m a public school kid,” Mr. DeSantis told the audience, unspooling a story that he has shared in recent years with aides, friendly interviewers, donors, voters and readers of his memoir, “The Courage to Be Free.” “My mom was a nurse, my dad worked for a TV ratings company, installing the metering devices back then. And I show up in jean shorts and a T-shirt.” The outfit “did not go over well with the Andover and Groton kids” — sometimes it is Andover and Groton, sometimes it is Andover and Exeter, sometimes all three — who mocked his lack of polish.

Worse than Yale’s snobbery was its politics: College was “the first time that I saw unadulterated leftism,” he told the Republican Jewish Coalition this March. “We’re basically being told the Soviet Union was the victim in the Cold War.” Teachers and students alike “rejected God, and they hated our country,” he assured the audience in Naples. “When I get people that submit résumés,” he said, “quite frankly, if I got one from Yale I would be negatively disposed.”

Then there are the parts of the story he doesn’t tell: How his new baseball teammates at Yale — mostly fellow athletic recruits from the South and West who likewise viewed themselves as Yale outsiders — were among those who teased him about his clothes, and how he would nevertheless adopt their insular culture as his own. How he joined one of Yale’s storied “secret societies,” those breeding grounds of future senators and presidents, but left other members with the impression that he would have preferred to be tapped by a more prestigious one. How he shared with friends his dream of going to Harvard Law School — not law school, Harvard Law School — and successfully applied there, stacking one elite credential neatly onto another, and co-founded a tutoring firm that touted “the only LSAT prep courses designed exclusively by Harvard Law School graduates.” How his Yale connections helped him out-raise rivals as a first-time candidate for Congress, and how he featured his Ivy credentials — “a political scarlet letter as far as a G.O.P. primary went,” Mr. DeSantis likes to say — on his campaign websites, sometimes down to the precise degree of honors earned. And how that C.V. helped sell him to an Ivy-obsessed President Donald J. Trump, whose 2018 endorsement helped propel Mr. DeSantis to the governor’s office in Florida, where his Yale baseball jersey is displayed prominently on the wall next to his desk…

For Mr. DeSantis and his allies, the culture wars are the central struggle of American public life, and schools are the most important battleground where they will be fought. “Education is our sword,” Mr. DeSantis’s then education commissioner, Richard Corcoran, explained to a Hillsdale audience in 2021. And Mr. DeSantis is the man to wield it — a self-made striver who was “given nothing,” as he told the audience attending his campaign kickoff in Iowa in May. “These elites are not enacting an agenda to represent us. They’re imposing their agenda on us, via the federal government, via corporate America and via our own education system.”

DeSantis has aggressively taken political control of Florida’s schools and universities, passing laws that limit or eliminate what may be taught about gender and race. He has encouraged parent vigilantes to scour classrooms and libraries for books on controversial topics and ban them. His ally, radical conservative Chris Rufo, is quoted in the article:

“The goal of the university is not free inquiry,” Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist and one of the new trustees [of New College], said during a recent appearance in California. Instead, he argued, conservatives need to deploy state power to retake public institutions wherever they can.

“The universities are not overly politicized. The universities are overly ideologized and insufficiently politicized,” Mr. Rufo said. “We should repoliticize the universities and understand that education is at heart a political question.”

At Yale, DeSantis joined Delta Kappa Epsilon (Dekes), which was known for its vicious hazing of pledges. As an upper-class member, DeSantis was known for bullying pledges and forcing them to engage in pranks like dropping their pants and exposing their genitals, while the older members mocked their private parts.

The story says that DeSantis took a course on the Cold War taught by the esteemed scholar John Lewis Gaddis, who was an outspoken critic of the Soviet Union. In other words, DeSantis lied about being exposed to pro-Soviet views of the Cold War.

DeSantis portrayed Harvard Law School, where he studied, as a bastion of left wing thought. But the Dean of the law school when DeSantis arrived belonged to the conservative Federalist Society. And he was not the only member of that group on the faculty.

A 2005 survey of The Harvard Law Review, published in the Federalist Society’s flagship publication, The Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, found that staff members “identifying themselves as left-of-center did not comprise even a majority.”

DeSantis neglects to mention that he was an active member of the Harvard Law School’s Federalist Society. He prefers to play the victim.

When he ran for Congress and then for governor, he tapped his Yale and Harvard networks to raise money.

But then he discovered there was even more political advantage for him if he played the role of the enemy of the ruling class.

How better to attack the ruling class than to destroy the public schools that enabled him to enter Yale? If this makes no sense, neither does DeSantis’ fable about being victimized at Yale and Harvard.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Character, Charter Schools, Cruelty, Democracy, DeSantis, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Florida, Hypocrisy, Privatization, Religion, School Choice, Vouchers

Read Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Indictment of Donald J. Trump

By dianeravitch
August 9, 2023 //
61

Inform yourself about the latest federal indictments of former President Donald J. Trump. Do not listen solely to what talking heads on the TV news say about the indictment.

Read it yourself.

When I read it, several points seemed especially noteworthy.

First, all of the incriminating evidence came from Republicans, most of whom were appointed by Trump to advise him as Justice Department officials and White House advisors.

Second, Trump was repeatedly told that he had lost the election. He was told this by a long list of high-level officials appointed by him.

Third, Trump was told repeatedly by state Republican leaders that his claims of voter fraud in specific states such as Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Michigan were wrong.

Fourth, no matter how many times Trump was told that there was no election fraud that would change the outcome, he continued to repeat the lies about dead voters, illegal voters, and biased voting machines in speeches and on Twitter. There was never any evidence of voter fraud, but Trump would not stop lying about it.

Fifth, Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman repeatedly told state officials about the scale of voter fraud in their states despite the lack of evidence for their claims.

Sixth, Trump and his co-conspirators devised a scheme to present alternate slates of electors in seven contested states. At first, they told the alternate electors that they would serve only if the courts determined that the results of the elections were illegal.

Seventh, since there were no successful court cases, the Trump strategy changed. He would pressure Mike Pence to recognize the alternate electors or to declare that he was returning the electoral votes to the states to investigate. Trump’s goal was to delay certification of Biden’s victory and to sow doubt about the legitimacy of the election.

Eighth, in the end, Trump’s conspiracy to block the peaceful transition of power was foiled because Pence would not go along with it. I read elsewhere that Pence consulted retired Federal Judge Mike Luttig, a conservative Republican. Luttig told Pence that his role on January 6 was purely ceremonial; he did not have the authority to change the outcome. Despite four years of obsequious loyalty to Trump, Pence stood up to Trump’s relentless pressure.

Lessons:

1. Our country avoided a major Constitutional crisis. If Pence had bowed to Trump, if Biden’s election had been canceled, the nation would have suffered grievously. The consequences would have been dire.

2. Trump knew that he lost the election. Almost all of his closest advisors told him so. But Trump is a sore loser. He refused to accept his loss. He simply ignored the facts and found a pod of true believers who conspired with him to overturn the election without regard to the vote, the Constitution or the good of democracy.

3. Trump and his co-conspirators are evil people who were ready to destroy our democracy rather than ceding power to the Biden administration.

4. I hope Trump is found guilty but I don’t believe he will ever serve a day in prison. He will be pardoned to avoid the spectacle of a former president in prison. However, in my view, the other conspirators are lawyers. They should lose their law licenses and serve time in prison.

Categories Accountability, Character, Corruption, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Failure, Hoax, Injustice, Lies, Trump

Jennifer Rubin: Florida Is the State Where Kindness and Decency Go to Die

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2023 //
47

Jennifer Rubin is a super-smart journalist-lawyer who became a regular columnist for The Washington Post, where she was supposed to express conservative views. However, the election of Trump changed her political outlook. Here, she writes about how Ron DeSantis’ hate policies are hurting the state of Florida.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and his obedient Republican legislature have made bullying and attacking the vulnerable the hallmarks of their governance. Whether it is “don’t say gay” legislation (and retribution against Disney for supporting inclusion), denying medical care to transgender youths, muzzling teachers and professors who address systemic racism in the United States, firing a county prosecutor who dared object to DeSantis’s refusal to protect women’s bodily autonomy, or shipping unwary immigrants to other states, Florida has become not where “woke” died but rather where empathy, decency and kindness go to die.


DeSantis’s stunts frequently fail in court and cost taxpayers money. But his MAGA war on diversity and tolerance might be negatively impacting the state in other ways.


DeSantis likes to brag that more people are moving to Florida than ever. Not so fast. “An estimated 674,740 people reported that their permanent address changed from Florida to another state in 2021. That’s more than any other state, including New York or California, the two states that have received the most attention for outbound migration during the pandemic,” according to the American Community Survey released in June tracking state-by-state migration.

Moreover, Florida already is one of the states with the oldest average populations, and the MAGA culture wars risk alienating young people and the diverse workforce the state needs. In February, USA Today reported, “Florida may be the most moved to state in the country, but not when it comes to Gen Z. They are the only generation that chose to exit Florida, with an outflux of 8,000 young adults, while every other generation moved in.”

In addition, evidence points to a brain drain from Florida universities and colleges, although data is hard to come by. Records show “an upward tick in staff departures at some of Florida’s largest universities. … Across the State University System, the murmurs are getting louder: Some Florida schools are having trouble filling positions,” the Orlando Sentinel reported. “At the University of Florida, 1,087 employees resigned in 2022 — the only time in the last five years that the number exceeded 1,000.” Record numbers of faculty are not returning to University of Central Florida, Florida State University and the University of South Florida. This is hardly surprising, given DeSantis’s assault on academic independence and his suggestion that students go out of state if they want to study topics such as African American studies.

In addition, some businesses might be getting cold feet about spending convention dollars in the Sunshine State. The Sun Sentinel reported, “Broward County has lost more than a half-dozen conventions as their organizers cite the divisive political climate as their reason to stay out of Florida.” If the trend continues, the significant share of jobs and state revenue attributable to convention business could shrink. DeSantis and his supporters counter that tourism is still booming. They insist low taxes will continue to attract the wealthy and businesses.

There is little sign that the rest of the country is enamored of censorship, book bans or anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment. The question remains whether DeSantis’s act wears thin at home.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Bigotry, Character, Civil Rights, Cruelty, Democracy, DeSantis, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Florida, Higher Education, History, Injustice

Carol Hillman: Some Suggestions to Share with Teachers Everywhere

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2023 //
29

Carol Hillman was a teacher for many years in Pennsylvania, and she ran a consulting service that encouraged rural youth to attend college. When she and her husband Arnold retired (he is also an educator), they moved to South Carolina. They must have expected to lead a quiet life, but they immediately became involved with rural high schools, where the students are Black and impoverished. They worked tirelessly to help students set their sights on going to college.

Carol wanted to share some of her life’s lessons with other teachers.

She wrote:

To teachers everywhere……..

Regardless of what subject we teach we share the responsibility to help our students prepare for their futures. Middle school students need to begin to think about, and high school students must further explore, the ways in which they shape their futures through their own actions.

Each of these prompts provide a topic you might invite your students to consider. Students will appreciate the opportunity to share their own opinions and need to learn to consider the opinions of their peers. In examining these ideas students will be using abstract thinking and higher orders of thinking.

You can limit discussion to a set day and/or time or invite students to address concepts in a journal you are willing to read.

If you have a school newspaper or yearbook you might include student comments on different topics.

Do they agree that a particular idea is valuable? If so, why or why not?

Class discussion will help students give examples of how the concepts apply to real life.

•Enjoy change because it’s the only thing we can predict.

•Have the courage to face new challenges.

•Accept that you can control your own behavior.

•Surround yourself with people who value you.

•Embrace diversity so you can enjoy other people, places and things.

•Understand that the world needs good followers and good leaders.

•Define and redefine your personal goals.

•Know when to accept help and when to say, “I can do this myself.”

•Show that you value others so you can keep old friends and make new ones.

•Know the joy of celebrating small accomplishments as they are the building blocks of a good life.

•Welcome new experiences to expand your knowledge and interests.

•Cooperate so you can become a constructive member of your community.

•Keep your promises so people can trust you.

•Understand that successful people know when to quit and move on.

•Take pride in your accomplishments.

•Accept that while you can’t always control what happens to you, you can control how you react to it.

•Understand that the best motivation comes from within.

•Recognize that you can make the world a better place.

If you have questions about these prompts and how to present them, feel to contact me at carol@scorsweb.org

Thank you,

Carol Hillman

Categories Character, Citizenship, Discipline, Education Reform, Ethics, Students, Teachers

Adam Schiff Responds to the Republicans’ Vote to Censure Him

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2023 //
21

Congressman Adam Schiff replied in the House chamber to the vote to censure him for his role in investigating Trump, including his leadership of the first Trump impeachment trial. The House voted 213-209 to censure him. Watch his five-minute speech. He was censured for doing his job as a member of a Congress.

As Jay Kuo explains in this post, censure is rare, administered for financial or ethical improprieties. A censure vote against Schiff was taken twice. The first time it failed, because 20 Republicans opposed it (some may have thought it was a dumb idea, but most were bothered because it would have fined Schiff $16 million for daring to lead the charge against Trump). The second vote passed for two reasons: 1) the $16 million fine was dropped, and 2) Trump threatened to primary any Republican who opposed it. Trump still terrifies House Republicans.

Schiff is running for the Senate in California. After watching his speech, I went to his website and contributed to his campaign.

Categories California, Character, Courage, Democracy, Elections, Injustice, Trump

Gavin Newsom Slams Greg Abbott for Ignoring Gun Violence

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2023 //
79

California Governor Gavin Newsom has been blasting away at knuckle-headed Republican governors like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott for their cruel indifference to other people. He’s already suggested he may sue DeSantis for kidnapping, after Florida sent two private planes with Venezuelan immigrants to Sacramento. Now, he’s going after Abbott for his refusal to take action against gun violence.

He wrote:

Texas… where elected officials are relying on Winnie the Pooh to teach their kids about active shooters because they don’t have the courage to keep our kids safe.

Tweet from Gavin Newsom: 'Winnie the Pooh is now teaching Texas kids about active shooters because the elected officials do not have the courage to keep our kids safe and pass common sense gun safety laws.'

Texas… where Greg Abbott signed a law to send DNA kits to parents of school children so their bodies can be identified after a shooting.

Tweet from Gavin Newsom: 'Greg Abbott’s solution to gun violence? Send DNA kits to schools so parents can identify their kids’ bodies AFTER they’ve been shot and killed.'

Guns are the leading cause of death for kids in America. Kids!

We’re not talking about accidents, or cancer or something unpreventable. We know the steps to take to save our kids lives. But leaders like Greg Abbott lack the courage to act.

Until then… It’s Winnie the Pooh for Texas families.

Gavin Newsom

Categories Accountability, California, Character, Courage, Cruelty, DeSantis, Ethics, Guns, Texas

Was This the Greatest Commencement Speech of 2023?

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2023 //
28

J.B. Pritzker, Governor of Illinois, gave a terrific commencement address at Northwestern University, with a fabulous explanation about how to spot an idiot. He says that idiots are not necessarily stupid. They may be your boss. They may even be elected President.

If you want to see the 20+ minute speech, it’s here.

If you want to see the part where Pritzker explains idiots, state at about 7:50 into the speech.

If you are on Twitter, see it here:

Summary:

“Whenever I’m about to do something, I think ‘Would an idiot do that?’ and if they would, I do not do that thing.” – Dwight Schrute

And what is the best way to spot an idiot? Look for the person who is cruel.

Categories Character, Cruelty, Ethics, Goodness, Lies

Paul Cobaugh: Jim Jordan, American Disgrace

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2023 //
22

Paul Cobaugh is a military veteran who retired as a Chief Warrant Officer who worked in special operations in communications and narrative strategies. He writes a blog about national security called “Truths About Threats.”

He wrote here about the loathsome Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan.

Cobaugh writes:

This is a short TAT. After all, it is the weekend. This morning, a friend posted on LinkedIn, a copy of the letter Jim Jordan sent to AG, Merrick Garland. That is what pushed me to my keyboard before resuming chores. Endless words will be written after the historical indictment of a former president. I will bring you a very different perspective on that indictment that very few will address, as I wade into this national security nightmare the beginning of next week. In the meantime… please consider my brief thoughts below, not for my sake but for all of ours. “All politics are local.”

The public square in Urbana, Champaign County, Ohio

Okay, I admit that I have a special disgust for Congressman, Jim Jordan. I will though be fair in this short post.

From a political perspective, any honest and well-informed person knows that Jordan was and in some ways, still is a Seditionist and enabler of the Jan 6th armed rebellion. He is also the Rep for the small Ohio town, where I attended 7th grade thru high school graduation. In my view, one of the finest small towns in the nation. Urbana, Ohio, the county seat of Champaign County numbered around 9000 people at the time, the biggest town in the county.

Now Jordan, is the rep of one of the most gerrymandered districts in the country. When I lived in Urbana, Ohio in the late 60’s and early 70’s, our local congressman was exceptionally well liked and respected. Clarence, “Bud” Brown represented what the Republican Party could have been, had they not deviated to scorched earth politics under the leadership and tutelage of Newt Gingrich. America has never been the same since. Don’t see this as an endorsement of the so-called, “other side” but as a statement of clear-eyed facts.

Jim Jordan’s, Ohio 4th Congressional District

This letter by Jordan to the AG, Merrick Garland shows in detail and Jordan’s own hand, the level of false narratives and utter dishonesty that keeps today’s MAGA-controlled GOP afloat. For those who have been warning about this and other indictments based on reality, research, and the opinions of elite experts, this is just another “hail Mary”, mis/ disinformation campaign designed to empower those who’ve proved that they will believe anything, if it suits their political identity. My personal and professional opinion of Jordan sees him as one of the most unethical and dangerous members of Congress.

What I once knew as a community of hardworking mostly rural Ohioans with remarkable grace, compassion and honesty, is now burdened by the weight of being sold snake oil by traitors and conmen who can’t even spell, “American values.” They largely operate on the traitorous narratives of FOX news. Fortunately there is still a solid core of great Americans in my home town but sadly, they are a minority. Even the Trumpists are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. The manipulation of their political identity by unethical, professional influencers, some domestic and some foreign, has resulted in Seditionists like Jordan and his ilk, leading the worst threat to our democracy since the Civil War.

The pain I feel for my hometown, is being played out all across America in small and large towns. The extraordinary work by U.S. Department of Justice, has thrown a hand grenade into their political identity. Now, with DOJ’s meticulously assembled public case being the news of the day, Jordan is launching a full-scale mis and disinformation campaign to support a known traitor. Not one person in Urbana would have tolerated this in my youth, despite being in one of the most reliable Republican Congressional districts in the nation.

Yes, I would also love to scream the words, “I told you so” but that will not heal America. Many Americans who were victimized by foreign and domestic malign influencers, are beginning to realize that they have been badly duped. Give them an open invite back into reality without the derision. They are family, friends and colleagues. Tragically, those who resist reality will likely never recover, because the level of indoctrination that leads to public displays of extremism, more often than not, is like rabies, mostly incurable.

It’s time for all Americans to realize that our fellow citizens are not enemies because they have different beliefs. Our Constitution, based on our founding principles, guarantees our right to our own beliefs, false or not. It’s really up to those who are willing to debate over facts and reality, to heal this nation for America’s sake, not a politcal party. It will be those who adhere to what it means to be a truly patriotic American, left, right or otherwise to put our nation, back on the path of progress, respectability and strength.

Truism: If you vote for honesty, integrity and our true American, founding principles… folks like Jim Jordan would never be in office. However you vote, we can never again allow any extremist movement to have so much say in our government, that they can once again threaten what so many have died to preserve.

Wishing everyone the most enjoyable weekend,

Paul

Categories Accountability, Character, Corruption, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Fascism, Lies, Ohio, Republicans, Trump

Scott Maxwell: Purging Knowledge in Florida

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2023 //
36

The mainstream media has given ample coverage to the likelihood that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is likely to announce his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president in the next week. The stories about him treat him as a normal elected officials. They do not reference his multiple efforts to censor ideas and people he doesn’t like; to ban teaching ideas he doesn’t like; to ban textbooks that include ideas he disagrees with; to persecute drag queens and gay people. The American people need to know who he is. DeSantis’ regime of censorship is a pathetic attempt by pasty-faced cowards to dumb down the students of Florida. They can’t succeed because everyone has access to the Internet and television, where they will learn about the lies the state is teaching them.

Scott Maxwell is a regular columnist for the Orlando Sentinel. He is fearless. In this post, he writes about Governor Ron DeSantis’ purge of knowledge he doesn’t like.

The headlines are as abundant as they are dystopian:

“Florida rejects, amends many social studies textbooks”

“An Entire Florida School District Has Banned a Kids’ Book on Segregation”

“Florida bans more than 40% of math books after review”

“350+ Books Banned in Florida School Districts Since Last July”

A knowledge purge is underway in Florida. The targets: History lessons that politicians want hidden. Perspectives that make parents uncomfortable. Truths that ideologues find inconvenient.

Basically, we have people who want to control the narrative. And they think it’s easier to do that if kids don’t know all the facts.

Now, it’s hard to get your hands around both the scope and the specifics of this purge, because education officials are censoring so much and revealing so little.

In the latest salvo, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ education department rejected 35 different social studies books — more than a third of all they reviewed.
Florida rejects some social studies books, forces ‘Take a Knee’ out of one

But to justify their actions, they released snippets from only six of the books they shunned or ordered altered. So you don’t have much to go on.
But let’s look at one of those six examples. It’s from an elementary school textbook that teaches children about patriotism.

DeSantis staffers approved passages that instructed students to learn the Pledge of Allegiance and encouraged parents to stress the significance of the national anthem. But they did not want kids hearing why they might see some Americans, especially athletes on TV, take a knee during the anthem.

Specifically, the Florida Department of Education ordered the textbook to remove a section that suggested parents — not teachers, mind you — use that lesson on patriotic traditions “as an opportunity to talk about why some citizens are choosing to ‘Take a Knee’ to protest police brutality and racism.” DeSantis staffers ordered that suggestion stricken.

A popular talking point for people who dislike athletes taking a knee is to describe them as “anti-American,” “anti-cop” or “unpatriotic.” And it’s easier to peddle that narrative if students don’t hear why the players themselves say they’re doing what they are.

Personally, I think there’s valid debate over taking a knee. I can see why some players would. I can see why many people would dislike them doing so. It’s not really that hard to understand the divide — if you listen to what people on both sides are saying.
But the new Florida model of education doesn’t want to share all sides. The censors say kids aren’t ready for these discussions. Really, though, it’s the adults who are scared their kids might hear a different perspective. They’re the snowflakes.

The DeSantis censors also axed a section about Black Lives Matter from a middle school textbook that presented both pro and con perspectives on the social movement. The passage described the killing of George Floyd, explained that social media gave rise to civic activism and then gave a brief explanation of why some people supported Black Lives Matter and an even lengthier description of why others opposed it.DeSantis’ education staffers ordered the entire section removed.

At least one of the passages DeSantis staffers removed looks justifiably flagged. It’s a section from a middle-school book that attempts to teach students what a socialist form of government is.
The first part does a fine job explaining that, in a socialist society, the government controls much of the means of production, but then says: “It keeps things nice and even and without unnecessary waste.” Um, what? That seems more like a pom-pom for socialism — and a pretty skewed one at that — than a civics lesson. Yank it out.

But here’s the problem: DeSantis staffers shared a reworked version of the textbook that met their approval. It removed the word “socialism” altogether, replacing it with “planned economies.”
I’m no fan of socialism, but I’d sure like students to have a correct understanding of what it is. Why? Because the vast majority of adults who scream about socialism absolutely do not. They somehow believe anything government-funded is “socialism” … and then turn into Cletus the Slack-jawed Yokel when you ask them if that means Medicare and highways are socialist as well.

I’d love to see students better informed than these adults. But that seems to be the last thing the grown-ups want.

Last year, before state officials were rejecting social studies textbooks, they were flagging math books for being allegedly too woke. A handful of people apparently believed liberal boogeymen had infiltrated the nation’s algebra-instructional complex. And the handful got their way.

Some of this censorship is silly, political theater. Some is a serious effort to indoctrinate.

One publisher, Penguin Randomhouse, sued the Escambia County school district last week over its book-banning. Other publishers agree to comply with whatever censorship orders they’re given as they’re more interested in selling textbooks than standing on any sort of educational principles.

Then there are all the school library books being banned in historic numbers, thanks to the Republican-led Legislature’s new book-banning bill — books about everything from the civil rights movement to nontraditional families.

School book challenges, already on rise, could escalate in Florida

The Lake County school district pulled a picture book about the true story of two male penguins in Central Park Zoo who raised a chick after the zookeeper gave them an egg. A Panhandle district removed a book about school segregation in the 1950s with the New Republic reporting the district concluded the subject matter was “difficult for elementary students to comprehend.”

I don’t think kids are the problem here. In fact, the local banning crusades are sometimes led by just one or two adults who not only want to shelter their own kids from ideas they find scary but want to keep books away from everyone else’s kids at school as well.

I thought of all this book-banning and history-censoring while attending a recent session on the rise of antisemitism at the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida. One panelist said the best way to combat hatred, intolerance and ignorance is to ensure children hear unvarnished truths. He described it as “The criticality of giving truth to our kids.”

The leader of a Holocaust Center in South Florida made a similar point recently stressing: “The Holocaust, it didn’t start with guns and death camps. It started with words.”

Well, words are precisely what Florida is trying to ban, censor and distort. In unprecedented fashion.

smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Censorship, Character, Cruelty, Curriculum, Democracy, DeSantis, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Florida, Republicans
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