From what I gather, the ill-defined term 'woke' appears to apply to anything that hints of human decency. This is today's America, where the politicians pander to the preachers and view human decency as a character flaw.
Lots of the so-called christian influencers on the right [including the recently deceased Charlie Kirk] claim that empathy is a flaw in our society that needs to be eradicated. Stunning, when the entirety of Jesus's actual teachings was based on empathy, showing they don't know what real christianity is or what their Jesus taught.
So I did a little checking and the most likely majors at the US Military Academies are STEM related. If you get 800 on the SAT special math test, you are a known quantity. You can pretty much pursue any STEM major and you have the chops to do well. This can only be another part of tRump’s plan to dumb down and destroy US military superiority. A test that the home schooled can pass is a travesty. Daddy Vlad must be ever so pleased!
If anyone has ever watched elephants gathering at their grave sites, there's no doubt they not only remember their dead, they mourn them. That's empathy. More than you'd find in a stadium full of republicans.
Honestly, the reaction you're talking about here is the best reason ever to actually put religious teaching into schools. Making MAGA parents explain to their children the BS they're constantly pushing on the rest of us only seems fair.
The beauty part is that you don't even have to label it as religious teaching. Caring about each other, forgiving people who've done you wrong, helping the poor and the sick, welcoming immigrants..... those are good life lessons without the religious trappings. And when the MAGA parents complain - and they will - school administrators just have to say, "Well, that's what Jesus taught in [fill in chapter and verse.]. Worth it to watch their heads explode.
I doubt they bothered considering content; it's just guilt by association. College Board creates APs. DeSantis and other conservatives don't like some social science APs. Since College Board also creates SAT, the SAT must be evil.
I agree that the College Board is a monopoly that, along with the likes of Pearson, have destroyed education in this country. I would be in favor of getting rid of them. But not by replacing education meant to prepare kids to be worker drones with education meant to teach kids that the End Times are coming and they should “get right with god before The Rapture”! It’s so ironic that DeSantis decided they weren’t far-right enough. Or that they didn’t give him as good a deal as Viktor Orban’s Mathias Corvinus Collegium propaganda factory that feeds Hillsdale College/ Chris Rufo/ Heritage Foundation/ evil Richard Corcoran, etc.
I didn't say that, and I don't view CB as negative. I have a generally positive view of both AP classes and standardized testing.
There's always room for improvement, but frankly I think with both the main issue that remains is not quality, it's user error. The classes are 'gated' more than they should be, and the tests are viewed almost as IQ tests - i.e scores reflecting some internal state, unchangeable, when in reality they're just a diagnostic of a mix of educational prep and test prep skills.
So, these actual classics are out: 𝘛𝘰 𝘒𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢 𝘔𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘣𝘪𝘳𝘥, written by a woman and the main black character was innocent of crime. 𝘓𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘈 𝘉𝘪𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘩𝘢𝘮 𝘑𝘢𝘪𝘭, they might accept something from MLK as a token, but only that one snippet of the "I have a dream" speech. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘞𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘩, well that's commie stuff. 𝘕𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘍𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘋𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴, 𝘢𝘯 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘚𝘭𝘢𝘷𝘦, their objection is in the title, they want to deny slavery is bad, and some want to deny it even was a thing.
"An American Tragedy" and "1984," written by two separate men who put sexual references inside those pages. Not to mention the latter explaining how the government can manipulate the minds of party members into strictly conform to the Party's ways.
In high school I read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle—about the child labor Republicans want to bring back—and The Kiss of the Spiderwoman—about a sort-of gay relationship between Argentinian torture victims in a prison. I did not like literature classes, but books like Chekov’s Metamorphosis and stories like Mark Twain’s The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg still affect my politics to this day. No out-of-control capitalism, no child labor, no torture prisons, and no depriving people of temptation thinking it will protect them.
Pearson however, if it even allowed “passages” from those “texts” to be taught at all, would just focus on whether Manuel Puig used punctuation correctly or on which “transition phrases” Checkov used between paragraphs. Nothing about ethics or (secular) morality. 🤦♀️
I haven't read The Grapes if Wrath since last millennia, app 1980ies. Should I try again? The book about Frederick Douglass I can't remember wether I've read it or not.
I am not surprised at all, the elite members of the fascist Christian Nationalist don’t want intelligent soldiers that may question orders. The leaders of MAGAS want mindless drones that will follow orders blindly and willingly even if the orders are to commit atrocities.
It's why maga/xtian nationalists hate "liberal education" because the liberal arts are the underpinnings of critical thinking and producing civic minded citizens.
Along with all the other attacks on education and forced indoctrination. The Christian Nationalists REALLY don’t like higher education. I wonder why? They hate cities too. That’s where people come together from all sorts of different backgrounds and break bread.
I just started reading Leaving the Fold. The author is a former fundamentalist turned psychologist who delves into the pathology of Christian fundamentalists and the existential threat they feel when their beliefs are challenged. They also DESPISE Social-Emotional Learning because it teaches children to feel good about themselves without gods and to stand up to bullies. I used to think it was all about money and grift, but Marlene Winell exposes Christian Nationalists as unparented children with intergenerational trauma, abandonment issues, and developmental delays, dependent on outside structure, unable to think or make decisions for themselves. It’s far worse than I imagined. They will never be “persuaded” by “debates”— they need years of therapy. So any kind of education that asks them to show evidence or think for themselves provokes insufferable angst.
This all checks out and makes perfect sense. I have given up long ago on trying to rationalize with Christian Fundamentalists to see or understand other people’s humanity. It’s certainly harder and more hurtful when you have a close family member (I do) who is one. The place where I draw the line is when their beliefs infringe upon my (and others) rights and become law. Now we have a problem and we can’t just “be friends” or “agree to disagree”. I believe having healthy boundaries is important.
What you will have is more fundamentalist kids gaining admission into the academies. Kids who will not have ever been presented with ideas that challenge their fundamentalist upbringing. Kids who will not have experienced diversity in their lives. Kids who were not taught critical thinking skills, but sophistry.
Kids trained in obedience to authority rather than acting on their own initiative.
Kids who resent women in the military.
Kids whose philosophical education ended before the Enlightenment.
These will be future officers in the United States military.
The CLT is "the gold standard?!?" IN A PIG'S EYE! Everyone from Trump on down boasts about how our military is the envy of the world, yet they want to use a clearly inferior test to qualify recruits. If I were any long-time noncom or officer from 2nd Lieutenant up to Captain, I would find this move more than a little disturbing. Our military depends on COMPETENT people to deploy and maintain the highly sophisticated weapons systems it uses.
That competency has just been compromised, and for the sound of it, our current Secretary of War (it is now the Department of War, right?) doesn't much care.
They actually, inconceivably believe in the End Times. They think they will be Jesus’s army after the Rapture. So they all need to “get right with god.” It’s so much worse than mere “ignorance.”
So, after all those years of ranting about 'lower standards' for affirmative action student, christians now want their own affirmative action standards because they can't cut it on the SATs. Well, well......
Also, I dare anybody on the right to actually define 'woke.' It's just another buzz word for 'stuff we don't like.'
Affirmative action was never really about lowering standards, it was about making sure marginalized people who met the standards had a chance to actually participate. Their version? Actual lowering of standards to get their preferred students preferential treatment.
No, it wasn't, and I'm sorry if I gave the impression that it was. The right-wing TROPE about affirmative action was that it lowered standards because, of course, they couldn't imagine women or POC getting into college on their own merits once barriers to entry were taken down. But now, as you rightfully point out, they're talking about actually lowering standards so the home skool hermits can get a leg up.
“Maybe you believe this doesn’t really matter” PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY. White Christian Nationalist curricula are VERY carefully planned and thought out and designed to precisely target anything they disagree with. They will literally admit when asked that this is indoctrination. It is mind blowing to me how many Americans blow this off. Is it too frightening to their worldview? Well, get over it, because it’s only going to get worse! The Right has ARMIES of think tanks full of extremists trained in Christian apologetics working with marketing experts who are poring over literature and math and science and history and cherry-picking to spin their cult narrative. Look at Peter Thiel! Thinking he is a good elf and completely twisting Tolkien’s pro-environmentalist message to paint Greta Thunberg as the antichrist! None of this is “ignorant” or accidental. Every word and sentence is chosen by design to numb the brain. I swear we need mass Dialectal Behavior Therapy! Radically accept this is deliberate cult mind control, use a squishmallow or scented glow stick or blow bubbles to calm your nervous system, but then get back out there and shut this shit down. 🤦♀️ “Classical,” “civilization” and “Western” all are code for “we want a White ethnostate.”
Good for you! I no longer have any personal accounts, but keep one for work. I dropped my phone in a sewer the other day, felt helpless without it, and considered not getting a new one.
All my connections were on there, but I used an ad blocker. They responded by constantly flooding my feed with irrelevant crap until I didn’t have time to search for my favorite people and pages. As an ADHDer who likes novelty, I DESPISE algorithms!
I don’t need to read the book. I have a Christian Nationalist (fundamentalist) person in my immediate family who no longer considers me a human being for some time now. I am very aware of how dangerous this is. I’ve been living it. I agree with everything you stated.
I don’t have too much to say about this. For once it isn’t the coffee. As hemant notes, this is just one more effort by the unwoke mind virus to take over the rest of the Borg. You will be assimilated. Or maybe, it’s putting the ass back into assimilated.
This is what stood out: “ By indulging right-wing Christians, this administration isn’t just lowering the bar; it’s weaponizing education, ensuring the next generation of military leaders are less informed, less capable, and more ideologically identical. It’s the worst possible way to run our service academies.”
It may be the worst way to run our service academies, but it’s the best way to make sure you have an obedient population of Christoborg, ready to do The lard’s work.
And to die for the benefit of the rich elite members of the fascist Christian Nationalist movement (who always seem to profit most from any wars being waged)!
I think we're just going to have to face it. America is actively being dumbed-down. Just as an educated woman intimidates men, so too does an educated man intimidate the elites. Our education system comes from the industrial revolution and was designed to educate people to work, not think; at least not think too deeply, and only focus on work. Public education only came about because industrialists were offloading the expense onto the government. Not much has changed in education, just the ways we educate the masses.
Public education creates consumer-producers. Higher education is a commodity, once reserved for the wealthy. Look at history, the vast majority of intellectuals are from wealthy backgrounds. There are exceptions, of course, but they do prove the rule. Then along comes America with its high ideals of equality. Worse still, people began to believe it.
------
I'm going to go out on a limb here and indulge in a little craziness. The Dutch East India Company lasted for almost 200 years. It gave us our modern form of corporations. America was on the rise. 100 years in, our contribution to capitalism was upgrading mass production with the assembly line, and then automating it. About 200 years in, we get Reagan, who undid a lot of things that began to throttle the robust middle class, considered by economists to be the heart of a thriving economy. The thing is, the same said robust middle class also gave rise to free thinking, not just from religion, but from the system designed to keep everyone in their place. So, public education had to be undone and rolled back to its traditional role of indoctrination. And why not privatize it at the same time.
Our other great contribution was outsourcing labor to the Far East. Now, America in on the decline and China is on the rise. My theory is the powers that be, the real powers that be, have decided that America had a good run, it's been 250 years. Europe rose until it stagnated, then America rose to replace it. Now it's growing stagnant. Meanwhile, China is rising.
The core purpose of conservativism is to keep the elites on top and the unwashed masses below. It came about because the nobility realized that what they did to the royalty could be done to them by their lessers, so to conserve the current structure and prevent power from dropping down a few more rungs, they had to make people believe that it was in their best interest to preserve things as they are before society fell apart further and lower classes got the idea that they were better than they really are.
Into this breach stepped academia. Science gave us eugenics, which, while promising, created great atrocities, so it had to go underground and rebrand. Meanwhile, psychology taught us how to better manipulate people. Science rose to support it with neuroscience. Mathematics with the statistics and the bell curve. And sociology to make racism great again.
I read the Regan piece. Very interesting. I believe when people were economically stable and we had a healthy middle class that freed up their time to focus on social justice issues and inequality. All of the social movements that came about and were successful scared the daylights out of the ruling class. We can’t have equality because that threatens their power. What we’re seeing now is a manmade economic crisis so that folks no longer have the capability or time to make any progress on these issues. It’s very deliberate. Rolling back of rights and reminding us who is in charge here.
Insulin pens are neat. On mine the needle is hidden until you press it against you skin. It is shaped almost like a pen. I seldom feel the needles as they enter. If I didn't know, I might think it was a pen. NEVER SEE THE NEEDLE!!! Tips are single use.
I agree with you that USA is dumbing down nowadays. It is so sad to watch. And I am so sorry that I couldn't stop my maga co-worker from moving to US with partner. Even though I am quite happy to not having to tell her to stop proselytising to me about what a hero TYG is.
Lowing standards so a preferred ethic and religious group has a better chance of being accepted..... Oh my God, the DEI calling coming from the house all along!! Du-du-dumnmmb!!!
"it’s weaponizing education, ensuring the next generation of military leaders are less informed, less capable, and more ideologically identical."
If the military academies' curriculum is based on the SAT and public high schools standards, even if students who take the CLT may enter, they won't be able to follow it and will probably have to drop out. They won't become officers but they will waste the time and money the academy could have given to a better student who scored high on their SAT.
Students taking the CLT will be unprepared for the academic rigor of the non-ideological first year subjects like calculus, engineering, and organic chemistry.
And too few realise that they understand their stuff better and remeber it better if they don't use AI all the time. (no, I don't remember the scourses now, so don't take my word for it).
Oh Christian Nationalists LOVE calling their curriculum "rigorous"! ROTFL. It's some sort of cult-speak to convince themselves that they're not feeding their children academic slop. I can't tell you how many times a Christian homeschool mom has replied to my criticisms of Classical Conversations by saying it's "rigorous." "Does that mean it makes them memorize passages of the Bible verbatim with no thought?" I wonder.
From what I gather, the ill-defined term 'woke' appears to apply to anything that hints of human decency. This is today's America, where the politicians pander to the preachers and view human decency as a character flaw.
Of course xtians view decency as a flaw. They are taught from childhood that humans are broken and in need of a savior.
Sick sick sick.
Lots of the so-called christian influencers on the right [including the recently deceased Charlie Kirk] claim that empathy is a flaw in our society that needs to be eradicated. Stunning, when the entirety of Jesus's actual teachings was based on empathy, showing they don't know what real christianity is or what their Jesus taught.
They only listen to Republican Jesus, wielding his AR-15 from the back of his loyal dinosaur mount.
Holding the King James Bible, and speaking redneck English!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/df2fe321da4fa6e013aaec82d9bdd510acb553439ec552c0b9b034ea71bbc556.jpg
So I did a little checking and the most likely majors at the US Military Academies are STEM related. If you get 800 on the SAT special math test, you are a known quantity. You can pretty much pursue any STEM major and you have the chops to do well. This can only be another part of tRump’s plan to dumb down and destroy US military superiority. A test that the home schooled can pass is a travesty. Daddy Vlad must be ever so pleased!
OMG! Love it!
O/T, Len. Are you any relation to Dave Koz, the jazz musician?
Not as far as I know.
If empathy is a flaw I don’t want to be right (wing). :P
Ironically, elephants (real ones and not Rethuglikkkans) display empathy.
If anyone has ever watched elephants gathering at their grave sites, there's no doubt they not only remember their dead, they mourn them. That's empathy. More than you'd find in a stadium full of republicans.
https://www.zentaur.org/memes/dog_republican.jpg
Yes they do. They’re so amazing.
And produce less shit.
Don’t be silly. Jesus didn’t really mean “do to others as you would have them do undo you.” that’s a mistranslation.
It’s “DO unto others…FIRST!”
That would mean actually reading the gospels, boy are you asking for a lot!
IKR? A bridge too far. Besides, it might not say what they want it to, so there's that....
𝑌𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑, ‘𝐿𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑛𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑏𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑚𝑦.' 𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝐼 𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑦𝑜𝑢, 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑟𝑎𝑦 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑡𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢...
-- Matthew 5:43-44
Tsk, tsk, tsk, one more of those lousy little biblical quotes that just slide right by people like Hegseth.
They don't like the flavor of that particular cherry.
Of course they don't. These are the Christians that LOVE to punch DOWN and get upset when they're called on that.
Jesus-hating kkkristians.
It was a similar part of Matthew that had Kirk claiming that it was hate filled Leviticus that was God’s greatest law, or some such nonsense.
100%. If you told 'christians' that schools were teaching anything their Jesus actually said, they'd scream it was woke socialist marxist communism.
Honestly, the reaction you're talking about here is the best reason ever to actually put religious teaching into schools. Making MAGA parents explain to their children the BS they're constantly pushing on the rest of us only seems fair.
The beauty part is that you don't even have to label it as religious teaching. Caring about each other, forgiving people who've done you wrong, helping the poor and the sick, welcoming immigrants..... those are good life lessons without the religious trappings. And when the MAGA parents complain - and they will - school administrators just have to say, "Well, that's what Jesus taught in [fill in chapter and verse.]. Worth it to watch their heads explode.
Now you forsee they read and understand the bible like you do. They don't.
They don't care what their bible says. Period.
Oh, I'm well aware. I just don't see that as my problem.
I doubt they bothered considering content; it's just guilt by association. College Board creates APs. DeSantis and other conservatives don't like some social science APs. Since College Board also creates SAT, the SAT must be evil.
I agree that the College Board is a monopoly that, along with the likes of Pearson, have destroyed education in this country. I would be in favor of getting rid of them. But not by replacing education meant to prepare kids to be worker drones with education meant to teach kids that the End Times are coming and they should “get right with god before The Rapture”! It’s so ironic that DeSantis decided they weren’t far-right enough. Or that they didn’t give him as good a deal as Viktor Orban’s Mathias Corvinus Collegium propaganda factory that feeds Hillsdale College/ Chris Rufo/ Heritage Foundation/ evil Richard Corcoran, etc.
I didn't say that, and I don't view CB as negative. I have a generally positive view of both AP classes and standardized testing.
There's always room for improvement, but frankly I think with both the main issue that remains is not quality, it's user error. The classes are 'gated' more than they should be, and the tests are viewed almost as IQ tests - i.e scores reflecting some internal state, unchangeable, when in reality they're just a diagnostic of a mix of educational prep and test prep skills.
APs, I lost what that is. Help?
Advanced placement : college courses you take in high school to win credits.
Exactement!
That not true. You must show human decency towards them. The flaw is only when you show it to people the don't like
The opposite of 'woke' is *stroke*.
I've had a stroke and I am fairly woke, so just skip it.
'Twas but a joke, apologies from this bloke. 🫡
Apologies from me to you. I was not thinking, too exhausted.
We're good. No ham, no fowl. I have no beef with you. 😉
while the preachers are butt-fooking Altar boys.
"today's America" including the United States🤔
Thanks
[𝑇]ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒’𝑠 𝑎 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑡𝑒, 𝑊𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛 𝐸𝑢𝑟𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑛, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐽𝑢𝑑𝑒𝑜-𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛.
So, these actual classics are out: 𝘛𝘰 𝘒𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢 𝘔𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘣𝘪𝘳𝘥, written by a woman and the main black character was innocent of crime. 𝘓𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘈 𝘉𝘪𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘩𝘢𝘮 𝘑𝘢𝘪𝘭, they might accept something from MLK as a token, but only that one snippet of the "I have a dream" speech. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘞𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘩, well that's commie stuff. 𝘕𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘍𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘋𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴, 𝘢𝘯 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘚𝘭𝘢𝘷𝘦, their objection is in the title, they want to deny slavery is bad, and some want to deny it even was a thing.
"An American Tragedy" and "1984," written by two separate men who put sexual references inside those pages. Not to mention the latter explaining how the government can manipulate the minds of party members into strictly conform to the Party's ways.
In high school I read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle—about the child labor Republicans want to bring back—and The Kiss of the Spiderwoman—about a sort-of gay relationship between Argentinian torture victims in a prison. I did not like literature classes, but books like Chekov’s Metamorphosis and stories like Mark Twain’s The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg still affect my politics to this day. No out-of-control capitalism, no child labor, no torture prisons, and no depriving people of temptation thinking it will protect them.
Pearson however, if it even allowed “passages” from those “texts” to be taught at all, would just focus on whether Manuel Puig used punctuation correctly or on which “transition phrases” Checkov used between paragraphs. Nothing about ethics or (secular) morality. 🤦♀️
Are you referring to Franz Kafka's 𝑀𝑒𝑡𝑎𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑝ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑠?
Sorry, lol. Distant memory.
I haven't read The Grapes if Wrath since last millennia, app 1980ies. Should I try again? The book about Frederick Douglass I can't remember wether I've read it or not.
Tomorrow: Library here I come.
I am not surprised at all, the elite members of the fascist Christian Nationalist don’t want intelligent soldiers that may question orders. The leaders of MAGAS want mindless drones that will follow orders blindly and willingly even if the orders are to commit atrocities.
It's why maga/xtian nationalists hate "liberal education" because the liberal arts are the underpinnings of critical thinking and producing civic minded citizens.
🎯
Along with all the other attacks on education and forced indoctrination. The Christian Nationalists REALLY don’t like higher education. I wonder why? They hate cities too. That’s where people come together from all sorts of different backgrounds and break bread.
I just started reading Leaving the Fold. The author is a former fundamentalist turned psychologist who delves into the pathology of Christian fundamentalists and the existential threat they feel when their beliefs are challenged. They also DESPISE Social-Emotional Learning because it teaches children to feel good about themselves without gods and to stand up to bullies. I used to think it was all about money and grift, but Marlene Winell exposes Christian Nationalists as unparented children with intergenerational trauma, abandonment issues, and developmental delays, dependent on outside structure, unable to think or make decisions for themselves. It’s far worse than I imagined. They will never be “persuaded” by “debates”— they need years of therapy. So any kind of education that asks them to show evidence or think for themselves provokes insufferable angst.
This all checks out and makes perfect sense. I have given up long ago on trying to rationalize with Christian Fundamentalists to see or understand other people’s humanity. It’s certainly harder and more hurtful when you have a close family member (I do) who is one. The place where I draw the line is when their beliefs infringe upon my (and others) rights and become law. Now we have a problem and we can’t just “be friends” or “agree to disagree”. I believe having healthy boundaries is important.
There is an enormous amount of generational personality disorder in many conservative Christian families.
or kill themselves.
What you will have is more fundamentalist kids gaining admission into the academies. Kids who will not have ever been presented with ideas that challenge their fundamentalist upbringing. Kids who will not have experienced diversity in their lives. Kids who were not taught critical thinking skills, but sophistry.
Kids trained in obedience to authority rather than acting on their own initiative.
Kids who resent women in the military.
Kids whose philosophical education ended before the Enlightenment.
These will be future officers in the United States military.
Frightening stuff
Hegseth wants loyalists to Trump, not to the Constitution. Hence the purges.
Kids who resent non whites, non-kkkhristians, and non heterosexuals in the military.
Christianity: lowest common denominator of intelligence.
That's unfair. Lots of (not all of course) xians I know are fairly sharp and intelligent.
I don’t have a high opinion of adults who place doctrines of imaginary friends over rational thought. It’s shows a lack of maturity and judgement.
I get what you mean, but those xians I know don't do that. Norway might be a (big) bit different than US regarding religious beliefs and doctrines.
It’s likely a lot different. The US is a backward, failed state.
The CLT is "the gold standard?!?" IN A PIG'S EYE! Everyone from Trump on down boasts about how our military is the envy of the world, yet they want to use a clearly inferior test to qualify recruits. If I were any long-time noncom or officer from 2nd Lieutenant up to Captain, I would find this move more than a little disturbing. Our military depends on COMPETENT people to deploy and maintain the highly sophisticated weapons systems it uses.
That competency has just been compromised, and for the sound of it, our current Secretary of War (it is now the Department of War, right?) doesn't much care.
He is too busy trying to find a way to fire anyone who is not a cis straight white male from the armed forces (websites and cemeteries included).
They actually, inconceivably believe in the End Times. They think they will be Jesus’s army after the Rapture. So they all need to “get right with god.” It’s so much worse than mere “ignorance.”
Because he is utterly incompetent.
So, after all those years of ranting about 'lower standards' for affirmative action student, christians now want their own affirmative action standards because they can't cut it on the SATs. Well, well......
Also, I dare anybody on the right to actually define 'woke.' It's just another buzz word for 'stuff we don't like.'
Affirmative action was never really about lowering standards, it was about making sure marginalized people who met the standards had a chance to actually participate. Their version? Actual lowering of standards to get their preferred students preferential treatment.
No, it wasn't, and I'm sorry if I gave the impression that it was. The right-wing TROPE about affirmative action was that it lowered standards because, of course, they couldn't imagine women or POC getting into college on their own merits once barriers to entry were taken down. But now, as you rightfully point out, they're talking about actually lowering standards so the home skool hermits can get a leg up.
I wonder how many home-schooled kids will be able to handle the rigors of a military academy.
25 % maybe. Or 100 % if their not real education are ranked as the most supreem education ever.
Raised in a bubble so they don't have to deal with the real world? Not many is my guess.
I didn't get that impression from you, I was just alluding to the right wing idiocy. :)
Thanks, Joe. These days it pays to clear things up, you know?
𝐼𝑛 𝑀𝑎𝑦, [𝐻𝑒𝑔𝑠𝑒𝑡ℎ]𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝐿𝑇 𝑡ℎ𝑒 “𝑔𝑜𝑙𝑑 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑟𝑑.”
I guess that makes the SAT and ACT the platinum standard.
I thought Kegsbreath's gold standard was Goldschläger.
Cuervo Gold.
Says the DUI hire. Is this what merit based looks like Pete? Good job 👏
ABC (network) kisses Trump's ass, cancels Jimmy Kimmel.
Toto, were not in America anymore.
Cancel culture, brought to you by the people who cry “cancel culture” 24/7.
I thought Toto was from Africa.
https://youtu.be/MH9FyLsfDzw
From NOGODZ
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mk5Dwg5zm2U&pp=ygUVYWZyaWNhIGNvdmVyIHdlaXJkIEFs
From me
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-c9-poC5HGw&pp=ygUSYWZyaWNhIGNvdmVyIGNob2ly
Worst lead guitarist ever!
A video of people applying hand lotion? Frog Leap is better. And why is there a torture device behind them?
Jomicur already made these jokes
You are years late 😝
Out of Africa to Kansas by way of Chicago with a quick visit to Graceland.
Whoops, shoulda read a bit further down as usual
Ben Meiselas of Meidas Touch Network offered him a job.
“Maybe you believe this doesn’t really matter” PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY. White Christian Nationalist curricula are VERY carefully planned and thought out and designed to precisely target anything they disagree with. They will literally admit when asked that this is indoctrination. It is mind blowing to me how many Americans blow this off. Is it too frightening to their worldview? Well, get over it, because it’s only going to get worse! The Right has ARMIES of think tanks full of extremists trained in Christian apologetics working with marketing experts who are poring over literature and math and science and history and cherry-picking to spin their cult narrative. Look at Peter Thiel! Thinking he is a good elf and completely twisting Tolkien’s pro-environmentalist message to paint Greta Thunberg as the antichrist! None of this is “ignorant” or accidental. Every word and sentence is chosen by design to numb the brain. I swear we need mass Dialectal Behavior Therapy! Radically accept this is deliberate cult mind control, use a squishmallow or scented glow stick or blow bubbles to calm your nervous system, but then get back out there and shut this shit down. 🤦♀️ “Classical,” “civilization” and “Western” all are code for “we want a White ethnostate.”
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNRfv7ERelY/?igsh=MXA4YXYxZGx1NDR3eQ==
I quit Meta.
Good for you! I no longer have any personal accounts, but keep one for work. I dropped my phone in a sewer the other day, felt helpless without it, and considered not getting a new one.
All my connections were on there, but I used an ad blocker. They responded by constantly flooding my feed with irrelevant crap until I didn’t have time to search for my favorite people and pages. As an ADHDer who likes novelty, I DESPISE algorithms!
Sorry. I quit Meta. Please read Maria Ressa’s book.
I don’t need to read the book. I have a Christian Nationalist (fundamentalist) person in my immediate family who no longer considers me a human being for some time now. I am very aware of how dangerous this is. I’ve been living it. I agree with everything you stated.
On top of the cristofascist state.
I don’t have too much to say about this. For once it isn’t the coffee. As hemant notes, this is just one more effort by the unwoke mind virus to take over the rest of the Borg. You will be assimilated. Or maybe, it’s putting the ass back into assimilated.
This is what stood out: “ By indulging right-wing Christians, this administration isn’t just lowering the bar; it’s weaponizing education, ensuring the next generation of military leaders are less informed, less capable, and more ideologically identical. It’s the worst possible way to run our service academies.”
It may be the worst way to run our service academies, but it’s the best way to make sure you have an obedient population of Christoborg, ready to do The lard’s work.
And to die for the benefit of the rich elite members of the fascist Christian Nationalist movement (who always seem to profit most from any wars being waged)!
I think we're just going to have to face it. America is actively being dumbed-down. Just as an educated woman intimidates men, so too does an educated man intimidate the elites. Our education system comes from the industrial revolution and was designed to educate people to work, not think; at least not think too deeply, and only focus on work. Public education only came about because industrialists were offloading the expense onto the government. Not much has changed in education, just the ways we educate the masses.
Public education creates consumer-producers. Higher education is a commodity, once reserved for the wealthy. Look at history, the vast majority of intellectuals are from wealthy backgrounds. There are exceptions, of course, but they do prove the rule. Then along comes America with its high ideals of equality. Worse still, people began to believe it.
------
I'm going to go out on a limb here and indulge in a little craziness. The Dutch East India Company lasted for almost 200 years. It gave us our modern form of corporations. America was on the rise. 100 years in, our contribution to capitalism was upgrading mass production with the assembly line, and then automating it. About 200 years in, we get Reagan, who undid a lot of things that began to throttle the robust middle class, considered by economists to be the heart of a thriving economy. The thing is, the same said robust middle class also gave rise to free thinking, not just from religion, but from the system designed to keep everyone in their place. So, public education had to be undone and rolled back to its traditional role of indoctrination. And why not privatize it at the same time.
Our other great contribution was outsourcing labor to the Far East. Now, America in on the decline and China is on the rise. My theory is the powers that be, the real powers that be, have decided that America had a good run, it's been 250 years. Europe rose until it stagnated, then America rose to replace it. Now it's growing stagnant. Meanwhile, China is rising.
The core purpose of conservativism is to keep the elites on top and the unwashed masses below. It came about because the nobility realized that what they did to the royalty could be done to them by their lessers, so to conserve the current structure and prevent power from dropping down a few more rungs, they had to make people believe that it was in their best interest to preserve things as they are before society fell apart further and lower classes got the idea that they were better than they really are.
Into this breach stepped academia. Science gave us eugenics, which, while promising, created great atrocities, so it had to go underground and rebrand. Meanwhile, psychology taught us how to better manipulate people. Science rose to support it with neuroscience. Mathematics with the statistics and the bell curve. And sociology to make racism great again.
Is my cynicism showing?
𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 "𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐧 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧" 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐆𝐮𝐭 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚'𝐬 𝐌𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐧 𝐄𝐧𝐝
https://hartmannreport.com/p/why-the-reagan-revolution-scheme
Sadly, der kinderführer was reelected, and the shit hit the fan. The column is approximately 2,000 words long.
Then there is this one, which is almost 2,800 words:
𝐇𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚 𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐝 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
https://www.alternet.org/america-third-world/
I read the Regan piece. Very interesting. I believe when people were economically stable and we had a healthy middle class that freed up their time to focus on social justice issues and inequality. All of the social movements that came about and were successful scared the daylights out of the ruling class. We can’t have equality because that threatens their power. What we’re seeing now is a manmade economic crisis so that folks no longer have the capability or time to make any progress on these issues. It’s very deliberate. Rolling back of rights and reminding us who is in charge here.
Pas du tout, continue steup'.
Insulin pens are neat. On mine the needle is hidden until you press it against you skin. It is shaped almost like a pen. I seldom feel the needles as they enter. If I didn't know, I might think it was a pen. NEVER SEE THE NEEDLE!!! Tips are single use.
I agree with you that USA is dumbing down nowadays. It is so sad to watch. And I am so sorry that I couldn't stop my maga co-worker from moving to US with partner. Even though I am quite happy to not having to tell her to stop proselytising to me about what a hero TYG is.
“It’s honestly shocking that Kevin Sorbo isn’t the CLT’s spokesperson.”
It’s not shocking that Sorbo isn’t involved in CLT, I’m sure he’s unable to locate it.
Disappointed!
Lowing standards so a preferred ethic and religious group has a better chance of being accepted..... Oh my God, the DEI calling coming from the house all along!! Du-du-dumnmmb!!!
Radioing from inside the base.
Religion (read: Christianity) repeatedly proving itself to be a monument to ignorance.
"it’s weaponizing education, ensuring the next generation of military leaders are less informed, less capable, and more ideologically identical."
If the military academies' curriculum is based on the SAT and public high schools standards, even if students who take the CLT may enter, they won't be able to follow it and will probably have to drop out. They won't become officers but they will waste the time and money the academy could have given to a better student who scored high on their SAT.
Students taking the CLT will be unprepared for the academic rigor of the non-ideological first year subjects like calculus, engineering, and organic chemistry.
Considering the impact of AI on students and how education is accepting the dumbing-down effects, I suspect the academies will do the same.
And too few realise that they understand their stuff better and remeber it better if they don't use AI all the time. (no, I don't remember the scourses now, so don't take my word for it).
I've heard something similar.
Oh Christian Nationalists LOVE calling their curriculum "rigorous"! ROTFL. It's some sort of cult-speak to convince themselves that they're not feeding their children academic slop. I can't tell you how many times a Christian homeschool mom has replied to my criticisms of Classical Conversations by saying it's "rigorous." "Does that mean it makes them memorize passages of the Bible verbatim with no thought?" I wonder.
Unfortunately no.
The retention rate for the academies is much higher. Around 80% graduate within 4 years vs. the national average of 50%.
This makes sense given that DOD is simultaneously both the educator and the employer of the graduates.