Jon Stewart: 'How Oscar Romero Got Disappeared by Right-Wingers...for the Second Time'

I agree, Archbishop Oscar Romero was a great person who stood for peace and justice for his people.

But just to add about the Texas high school curriculum controversy: I read that the extreme right-wingers not only want to remove Oscar Romero, the want to remove Thomas Jefferson.

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2010/03/texa...

This reminds of another person who was on the Texas DOE Textbook Committee. David Barton, who founded Wallbuilders, was graduated from Oral Roberts University with a degree in Religious Education. He was not trained to be a teacher in public schools and therefore wasn't even certified to be a teacher in Oklahoma.

After graduation, he taught school at his father's church. I supposed he got himself certified to teach in Texas. At least, he got himself on the Textbook Committee down there. He even got himself an important position with the GOP in Texas, too, and that was on the platform committee.

Barton proof-texts government documents and historical documents which aren't official government documents to suit his own revisionist history. He even proof-texts Scripture to suit his own agenda. I know for a fact that ORU theology students, no matter what their offical major have to take the Interpreting the Bible course as a requirement for their degree. I took the course as a leveling course when I was a grad Theo. student there in the 1970s.

I watched the Daily Show and it was funny the way that Jon Stewart presented this censoring of history by those down in Texas.

So why does determing the content of a school textbook become censoring when the right does it, but not when the left does?

In a way, this is an economic issue. Texbooks have limited space; there is a scarcity of "real estate" in the textbook. People want to include more than can be included so someone has to decide what goes in and what stays out. No matter who decides, it's still censorhip.

The Jesus that these right wing extremists espouse is unrecognizeable as the Jesus of the Gospels. I have been in the church my entire life and at 60 years old I have never, ever, thought that government and religion should go hand in hand - let alone let the church edit text books. We are only a step away from our version of the Taliban.

Because of who's doing it and for what purposes. This isn't the first time such things have happened.

Do you truly believe that Thomas Jefferson should be excised from public school history books? Because as I stated earlier (with a link to support it), that's exactly what these extreme fundamentalists want to do.

"Do you truly believe that Thomas Jefferson should be excised from public school history..."

What difference does it make what I want, or what you want? All that matters is what the people of Texas want and they have as much right to decide what goes in as anyone does.

But my personal preference would be to limit coverage of Jefferson and include more on Madison and Washington. I think Jefferson is important, but overrated.

PS, the main thing I dislike about the way American history is taught is that it is too much politics and war. I would like to see more economic history.

Are you saying they want Texas public school history books to have no mention of Thomas Jefferson?

I agree. It seems that too often "history" is just a litany of wars and who was in charge. It wasn't until college that I really appreciated all the things going on in just the USA while wars raged. World history was even worse. Only when I started to study first century Christianity did I learn about all the different sophisticated cultures that existed and all the interaction and trade between them. No wonder we see war as defining our lives when that is basically all that is taught about our history.

Yeah, Jefferson is "overrated" because he wasn't "christian" enough as some of our other founding fathers. In actuality though, most of our founding fathers weren't all that christian, they were deist's. You fundamentalists want a generation of children brainwashed with your neo-conservative propaganda. Heck, why don't we just wrap an american flag around their eyes as soon as they are born. Blind nationalism is what you people want. I will say that i am not for any sort of political party influencing our history, be it liberal or conservative. You fundamentalists were all for taking out the Taliban but you sure as heck don't mind having an american style taliban here. If there were a panel of liberals sitting on this committee that decides the content of the school books then it would be you, sir, who would be the one crying foul. I am in no way attacking you, just adding to the discussion.

Some how I guess I have been too long believeing that an acedemically sound educational system, with reasonably well trained educators presented all sides of the issues.

I guess neither is true - - - -

"All that matters is what the people of Texas want . . ." Actually this decision was not made by the people of Texas (of whom I am one). It was made by the Texas State Board of Education, an elected body. But this decision was made by some lame duck members. The current chair of that body, Dr. Dan McElroy, is an outspoken religious and political fundamentalist. But he is a lame duck. He was defeated in the recent primary by a much more moderate Republican, who will be elected in November since there is no Democratic opponent on the ballot. The representative on the SBOE from the Panhandle-South Plains area is a moderate Republican. He trounced his religious right opponent in the recent primary. To say this is what the people of Texas want is a stretch, to put it mildly. I could put it much less mildly, but I try to adhere to the code of conduct for commenters on this blog.

There is also the issue, I believe also covered in the Stewart clip, that the State of Texas purchases so many textbooks that pretty much what the State of Texas decides is in (or out) of the textbook is what almost every other State ends up with in (or out) of THEIR textbooks.

It's another example of "the market" at work...it's much more economical not to have to print different versions, so everyone is stuck with what the biggest customer wants, whether they also want it or not.

How about a chapter on Wallis and Sojourners. I've read that they really have been instrumental in changing America.

Patricia: "It's another example of "the market" at work..."

No. It is an example of the state at work. There is no free market in publci education. It is totally state controlled. The fight in Texas is an example of why public education creates more problems than it solves. The simple answer is to give vouchers to parents and let the parents choose which private schools to send their children to. Then the schools should have the freedom to choose their own textbooks without the state dictating which textbooks to use. That would be markets at work.

It's really sad when people can't distinguish between the state and the market.

I suggest two books. (1)Twentieth Century: A People's History (Zinn)
http://www.amazon.com/Twentieth-Century-Peoples...
(2)Minor Prophets Major Themes (Berrigan) http://ncronline.org/blogs/road-peace/daniel-be...

If the State of Texas were not the largest customer, the textbook industry would simply accommodate itself to whomever was. The result would be the same - almost everyone would have to use the same textbooks. It doesn't matter who the customer is - it's the producer who seeks to operate most efficiently with the least amount of specialization (in this case, specialized content).

Standardized production results in lower costs (to the producer) than specialized production.

It is naive to say that any process like a state-wide curriculum decision that is a primary factor in deciding content for textbooks purchased in a free market is completely a state issue or completely a market issue. If we could divide the state and the market so easily, we wouldn't even have a health care reform debate.
In response to an early comment, the Romero-specific problem is that Romero was deleted from the curriculum because one woman on the board did not know who he was and believed that only people whose names are already well-known to the average Texan should be included. Worse, the majority of the board agreed with her. It would be likened to deleting MLK, Jr., from that list if he had not already been included in the curriculum and through other cultural remembrances long enough to be well known.
Yes, liberals and conservatives have each played a role in deciding the fate of school curricula and have done so to serve their respective agendas, but that does not justify limiting education to that which is common knowledge in the States when their is a severe lack of knowledge of our neighbors to the south who have, in recent history, persevered through great turmoil in the name of freedom and equality.

What has the left censored from textbooks?

Sorry. They're not famous enough to be in textbooks.

It's editing when you do it ethically, for reasons of space, educational value, importance, relevance, etc.--things a professional editor or educator would consider. When it's done by a politician or someone else whose only consideration is getting the denominational or party message across; it's censorship, or, if inserting material, propaganda.

Blessings