Gary Varvel for June 11, 2020

Opposing racism is canceling our culture? Just say no to drugs Gary!

There is a HUGE difference between recognizing bad things from our collective past and reveling in them.

In what way do you suggest that Democrats are canceling culture or deleting history? By taking down statues? STATUES ARE NOT HISTORY! Or is it in fact by insisting that history actually be taught? You know, using those pesky primary sources that show slavery was explicitly the reason for secession, and that the CSA explicitly claimed white superiority. All those things you would NEVER find in a history book before. Hat stuff? Or did you think Gone With The Wind was history? How about Birth Of A Nation? That’s the stuff you’re longing for? And I haven’t even gotten to our treatment of the land’s original inhabitants. Stuff we, of course, never bothered to teach.

⇧ the second amendment, which doesn’t in any way say that the average person should be able to carry firearms…

If we reach a point when an equal number of Confederate statues have been taken down as the number of Black churches have been burned down, then we can talk “history”. But the loss of the warm fuzzies racists feel in the shadow of dear old Johnny Reb cannot compare to the devastation that has been visited on Black communities over the years. And while you are at it, think about putting Fort Pillow and Tulsa in your “history” book.

It’s Gary’s feeble defense of the orange demagogue’s falling poll numbers after his disastrous response to the pandemic and racial protests; borrowed from Ivanka’s cancel culture speech a few days ago. Just another failed ploy by Gary to make the right appear to be alienated and persecuted by the lamestream media.

Moron. They’re not saying “don’t teach history”, they’re saying don’t put up statues of the traitorous losers or fly their flag.

Gary, does that apply to Texas?

https://qz.com/1273998/for-10-years-students-from-texas-have-been-using-a-history-textbook-that-says-not-all-slaves-were-unhappy/

https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/january-2019/texas-revises-history-education-again-how-a-good-faith-process-became-political

from that link “…The resulting standards were so flawed that even the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute blasted them. The institute’s scorching 2011 review of state US history standards characterized the Texas standards as “a politicized distortion of history.” Among other things, noted the report, the standards offered an “uncritical celebration of ‘the free enterprise system and its benefits,’” completely overlooked Native Americans, downplayed slavery, barely mentioned the Black Codes or Jim Crow, and dismissed the separation of church and state as a constitutional principle. …”

Or is it all ok when “Your side” does it?

what crap. we SHOULd, indeed we MUST teach about the past and make sure we include the systematic racism of our ancestors. That’s part of our heritage as well.

Utter right wing lies. The lying oppressive racist Republicans have nothing but lies, theft and a bigly police state for you.

Read A People’s History of the United States a 1980 non-fiction book by American historian and political scientist Howard Zinn. In the book, Zinn presented what he considered to be a different side of history from the more traditional “fundamental nationalist glorification of country”.

You will see the real story.

This one made me laugh. How can Varvel be so clueless? Tearing down statues is not rewriting history any more than putting them up was doing. The conservative uproar against the 1619 project demonstrated to me that it’s the right wing that is terrified that people will stop believing the pap and fairy tales they want to spin to our children about our history.

Yes, Gary Varvel, let’s continue to genuflect to the Confederate statues and flag and wish slavery could be brought back. You idiot.

Makes me think of the Lost Cause… https://www.thedailybeast.com/time-to-expose-the-women-still-celebrating-the-confederacy

In Austin, Texas, 15 people influence what is taught to the next generation of American children. Once every decade, the highly politicized Texas State Board of Education rewrites the teaching and textbook standards for its nearly five million schoolchildren. And when it comes to textbooks, what happens in Texas affects the nation as a whole. Texas is one of the nation’s largest textbook markets because it is one of the few where the state decides what books schools can buy rather than leaving it up to local districts, which means publishers that get their books approved can count on millions of dollars in sales. Further, publishers craft their standard textbooks based on the requirements of the biggest buyers. As a result, the Texas board has the power to shape the textbooks that children around the country read for years to come.https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/revisionaries/

Clearly Varvel has never heard about Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States”. It’s not blank pages.

Another number 1 top seller coming to your dollar store soon. Find it in the fiction section near the Sarah Palin paperbacks.

What’s that, a history textbook from Texas?

Modern history is the teaching of things not relevant to our culture as though it was something historically significant and including the kowtowing to minority hate groups because it’s the politically correct thing to do.

Two books on American history that everyone should read are

American Nations

Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism

The first book introduces us to the different “nations” of North America. It explains a lot about cultural differences between even just white populations, which are based upon who settled where.

The second book explains a great deal about the role of capitalism in American history, from the capitalists who funded Jamestown and those who funded the Plymouth Colony. How Virginia went from indentured servants to slaves (the few slaves may have arrived first, but slavery did not expand rapidly for quite some time.)

In the southern states, slaves were often a better investiment than the land they worked.

There are real insights into the role of capitalism in the development of the US.

No,no, no; jeez, Gary: ‘politically correct’ history does not remove what happened, but INCLUDES MORE of what happened: it’s ‘current history texts’ that have excised fact and record.

I’ll bet there’s be less backlash if they were statues to Hitler, Tojo, Bin Laden, Al Baghdadi, Cornwallis, Mussolini, Stalin, Kim Il Sung (or any of his kids), or others in that same vein. Sorry, but the Confederacy was an enemy of the United States, and they shouldn’t be honored any more than Nazis, KKK, Kamikaze pilots, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Axis forces, or the Khmer Rouge.

In the state of Texas, a student will be failed on a test if they site slavery as the cause of the civil war. Who is editing history?

Republicans try to rewrite history, even against a slew of videotaped evidence. Odd that they bother with “correcting” books anyway, when they don’t like to read them and prefer to burn them…

So, saying “hey this guy you call a hero was actually a bad man, and here is why” is erasing history? Sounds to me like it is actually teaching history.

That’s rich, given that is Republicans having the history books rewritten to match their imaginary “facts”. Did you know that all those people brought over from Africa to work the cotton fields were “immigrants”? That Hitler as a Marxist? That the KKK is made up of liberals?

“Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong” is a 1995 book by James W. Loewen, a sociologist. It critically examines twelve popular American high school history textbooks and concludes that the textbook authors propagate false, Eurocentric and mythologized views of American history.

Judging from what he knows about US History, I’d guess that to be Trump’s history book from college.

Republican’s are turning back the history clock. They want a racist police state.

80% of Americans are outraged.

I have always hated the term “politically correct”. But then I’ve always thought that… given enough time and effort… there is one actual truth. With error bars. The history we should be teaching is what actually happened, albeit at a level suitable to the audience. And it’s NOT an easy job to get to that level while retaining what I think of as truth.

Education has an agenda. Every teacher knows that.

The 1619 Project delivers the truth, but like most republicans, you can’t handle the truth.

I think barbells Brain got canceled. When he drank the Kool-Aid