Of course it was that gusano Maria Salazar who introduced this bill.
Interesting to note that the text of the bill seems to focus on China and mentions Xinjiang in particular. Also how 1.5 billion people currently “suffer” under communism.
This actually seems like a bit of an own goal to me. Sure, tell a bunch of high school kids how China is an undemocratic totalitarian nightmare and that the Uighurs are currently having their organs harvested. Then those students can do literally 10 minutes of research to see that none of that is actually happening and that the people of China are pretty happy with the state of things (at least relative to US Americans).
I should point out for non-US Americans here, education in the US is decentralized. The federal government doesn’t actually have much authority. This bill just tells the Victims of Communism Memorial Fund (snicker) to create materials and make them available.
Death to America.
I’m not convinced lessons in middle school are what shape an average American’s political stances. At most it just teaches them specific vocabulary. No one remembers shit from school. The propaganda is everywhere at once and totalizing.
Your K-12 education absolutely plays a role in your political development. Not more than, say, your parents, but still absolutely narrows the frame of what you think about politics.
Yeah you’re right there about your parents. Whenever I want to know someone’s politics without asking them directly I always ask “where does most of your money come from” and “what do your parents do for a living.” I have a 95% success rate with this tactic.
I’m not convinced that Americans remember much from school at all though. Most Americans read at a sixth grade level and can’t even identify all 50 states. The primary political ideology for the average American is “I don’t give a shit, that’s boring and gay.”
Actually I’m with you if you also think that widespread disinterest and alienation is the deliberate shape of ideology being pushed by K-12. Millions of people were confused about Harris being on the ballot in November rather than Biden. And they’re the ones who are more interested in the process since they show up to vote. That 50% of people who don’t vote are little islands of idiosyncracy whose ideology boils down to various slogans they might half remember, or they’ll state outright that they don’t care.
Also don’t get it twisted, I’m not a liberal who looks down on people who don’t care about who the president is or reading theory. That’s probably a lot saner of an outlook than I have. The disinterested person at least realizes American is a scam and it doesn’t matter who gets elected.
I wanna ask since I’m curious too, what do you think the primary messages in K-12 are? Like, jingoism and xenophobia? That would be my guess about deliberate propaganda. Do you think it’s something like that?
I believe this is the bigger factor in the effectiveness of capitalist propaganda. It’s so pervasive that is becomes the whole of reality, and you can comfortably take it for granted for your entire life if you don’t encounter the right people.