From 2000 to 2010, those are the Bush years folks.
Just in case you imagined that it did not matter all that much who was in the White House, these illustrations demonstrate a quite compelling argument that it most certainly does.
And it is no wonder, when Republicans are of the mindset, recently voiced by Rick Santorum, that higher education "indoctrinates" students into accepting progressive ideas.
Get a load of this, and see if you cannot recognize the clue about what is REALLY happening in college classrooms that seems to have escaped Santorum's irrational mind.
After saying "we've lost, unfortunately, our entertainment industry," Santorum told a Naples, Florida, audience that "we've lost our higher education, that was the first to go a long time ago."
"It's no wonder President Obama wants every kid to go to college," said the former Pennsylvania senator. "The indoctrination that occurs in American universities is one of the keys to the left holding and maintaining power in America. And it is indoctrination. If it was the other way around, the ACLU would be out there making sure that there wasn't one penny of government dollars going to colleges and universities, right?"
He continued: "If they taught Judeo-Christian principles in those colleges and universities, they would be stripped of every dollar. If they teach radical secular ideology, they get all the government support that they can possibly give them. Because you know 62 percent of children who enter college with a faith conviction leave without it."
Now do you understand WHY Republicans fear education, and are trying to systematically destroy access to it in his country?
It is not hyperbole to make the case that if you want a smarter, better educated, country, that you need to vote Democrat. Sadly the proof of that is everywhere you look.
Well, you'll be happy to hear that my elementary school decided that 4th grade students making baking soda volcanoes was more important than having a library. So they'll have an extra science teacher come on campus (because the teachers are too lazy to do hands on science with their own classes) and the library will be locked due to no staff.
ReplyDeleteOh, they said so the students could score higher in science on the state tests.
As to being able to do research, write a paper and provide proper vetted citations, well, too bad. No librarians in middle school or high school. And now no one in elementary school to teach them proper research or note taking either.
But I'm sure those volcanoes will be very impressive.
Truly sad that, in America, to be educated, to aspire to the acquisition of higher learning, to be a teacher is to be vilified. To work hard all your life and retire, or get laid off, or get sick - you become a pariah. To have to apply for public assistance when the above happens, you will be treated like a criminal and forced to submit to drug-testing.
ReplyDeleteSad - but, we know who wants to promote this sick decline, and we know who applauds when even sicker political platforms and legislation are presented under the guise of good ole commonsense Conservativism.
How far we have fallen - as our educational system fails and the illiteracy rates rise - so will the ability to compete on the world stage in any area. And this is where Palin and the GOP/Teabaggers want to take us! Don't let them do it - VOTE! Support our teachers and public education for all children, keep religion out of the public schools.
Little christian, non-thinking tools who are willing to work for minimum wage and go to church every Sunday and thank god for their misery. Then go home and not get laid because they don't want to or can't afford another kid. When they are finally frustrated enough and sexually starved enough they go to the bathroom at MSP and start tapping their toes in a stall. Next they get arrested, hauled in front of a judge, proclaim entrapment and go back to church, confess their sins and get all their fellow parishioners to come and pat them on the back in a loving christian manner.
ReplyDeleteThat about sums up Ricky's world. Too dumb to think for themselves so they have their minister think for them.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson Shoots Down Gingrich’s Moon Base
ReplyDeletehttp://gizmodo.com/5880084/neil-degrasse-tyson-shoots-down-gingrichs-moon-base
We are doomed if this keeps us.
ReplyDeleteDefeat "faith-based" education.
O/T but a great way to start the day!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=359802180699379&set=a.353550314657899.97035.
349449535067977&type=1&ref=nf
It is in the interest of the Republicans, especially the right wing, conservative religious Republicans, to keep people as ignorant as possible. That way, they are ripe for the hypnotic spell of Fox, and they will believe anything they are told, especially if the message is frightening enough.
ReplyDeleteThe parallel in history is there. In any dictatorship, the first places to go are the universities, the newspapers, anything that will encourage people to meet, talk, discuss things, learn, and question. No dictator can survive that. It happened in Argentina, Chile, Russia, China, Cuba.
If you need an example closer to home, during the Nixon administration, there were protests against the war in Vietnam. Protesters were arrested to muffle dissent. Our friends who just attended peace marches have a file at the FBI. Nixon wanted to remove any opposition to his line of thinking. He almost succeeded.
The Republicans cannot exist when people question what they are saying.
That is a bloody interesting demographic, and certainly, one of the most interesting ways to depict it!
ReplyDeleteI believe I was just heard a report on tv about the Koch Brothers giving conditional money to colleges--they could use the money as leverage to ban professors they didn't like. It's just like the Right to first accuse the Progressives of something bogus and then go out and do it themselves in "retaliation" for their trumped up accusation. This is not new. I had a fundie grandfather who said the same things about college.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there is this:
ReplyDeletehttp://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/9664-focus-low-iq-a-conservative-beliefs-linked-to-prejudice
And Indiana's stoopid senators want creationism taught in the classroom. Not only are they dumb the first time around, they also can't learn. Dover, Senator, Dover?
ReplyDeleteThe politics of self-destruction.
ReplyDeleteThey want to keep the masses dumb-ed down, easier to control that way, but that's no way to lead the world.
Republicans - Winning a race to the bottom of the gene pool.
http://www.newser.com/story/138483/palin-defends-newt-calls-gop-elites-cannibals.html
ReplyDeleteWhy is she trying to hitch herself to Newt? Can she not stay out of the limelight?
Since when is a college eduction something evil?
ReplyDeleteWhat is wrong with these people???
Why do they hate America???
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/01/the-return-of-queen-esther.html
ReplyDeleteThe Return of Queen Esther..
Tyson is one smart man AND has the ability to make science information easily accessible and understandable to those of us whose IQs are not quite up to the level of his.
ReplyDeleteInteresting video...and rather frightening to think of how much worse it could become if the GOP wins majorities at ANY level this November.
i may be off base here, but aren't the dominionists and militant christian base going to lose a lot more followers if they make potential...errm, customers choose between between thought, reason and faith? why can't a person have faith and live by science? anyone?
ReplyDeleteIt's not a coincidence that for centuries the church mandated ignorance and jealously guarded literacy and literature. Their power depended on it, and they knew it, and there was nothing that was beneath them in their lust for power.
ReplyDeleteConservative Christian has come to mean someone ignorant enough to try to navigate the world w/ a map drawn during the bronze age and, when seeing that it doesn't fit, insists the world is wrong. Those educated enough to recognize it's the map are the victims of indoctrination.
They're not going away, but neither are we. Maybe we need to remember once in a while the lessons of those who fought for the freedom we seek to maintain and improve. Gen "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell said it well I think. His motto was nil carborundum illegitimi -- don't let the bastards grind you down.
@ mlaiuppa--
ReplyDeletei'm sorry i didn't read comments before, but there is something wrong with your pta/school administrators. my child goes to a small school in a rural area and our librarian is shared with another school and there are parent volunteers who fill in and assist when needed. i am concerned (don't know if that is the right word) about your attitude towards science. my child is inspired and energized by the science experiments in class. always talks a mile a minute when they've done something in class! you can't teach a child to LEARN if all you do is teach towards a test. children need to be inspired and who is inspired by memorization?
mlaiuppa,
ReplyDeleteWhat state are you in? That certainly isn't the case where I live.
Out of what part of his ass did Santorum pull that 62% statistic?
ReplyDeleteHard to believe that he is Catholic as very best K-12 schools and universities are Catholic. They are definitely not anti-science.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing to think how quickly the middle class developed and then faded in this country. The advent of labor unions and the post-WWII GI Bill of Rights (that educated and trained millions of veterans) created the middle class of the 1950's through the 1970's. It was public education and our until recently excellent post-secondary school education put a man on the moon. Now all of that is seen as seditious. What have we allowed to happen to ourselves?
ReplyDelete10:35
ReplyDeleteI would like to suggest that at the very next PTA (I am sure you attend)meeting,you discuss this and propose parent and grand parent volunteers to work the library.Develop a schedule that works for volunteers and students.Then check out your local library as well,so that you may take your children there during non-school hours to study and research.School hours can be better spent on instruction and children can learn to do their research without wasting instruction time.I don't know of any elementary school libraries with librarians who teach the ins and outs of research.Mostly they deal with the Dewey decimal system,keeping order,and maintaining the library.Imagine the plus of having several adult volunteers on hand to help the children.Is there some reason why you feel that science is not important?Are you sure the teacher is "too lazy" to do science projects?Because in my experience the volcanoes,etc,are projects done by the students with help from parents.My grandsons made huge dioramas with volcanoes destroying them as they erupted,with my help.The multiple other projects were done by us as well,from solar ovens to wind mills and 2 liter tornadoes. Maybe parents in your district could step up as well.
Gryph, I think you missed the point. Republicans are not afraid that the next generation will lose its faith in God; republicans are afraid that the next generation will lose its faith in corporate America and the oligarchy that holds it in place. Republicans fear losing their power structure and being shown up for their own ignorance more than they fear having irreligious children.
ReplyDeleteThe Bible says, "train up a child in the way he should go, and he will not depart from it." As a very well-educated person raised in a republican home that valued education, I can assure you: what changed when I became educated was that I lost my faith in 'republicanism'; I did not lose my faith in God.
As far as the Santorum (and other republican) rant that universities 'rob the next generation of faith', my comment is: when Biblically illiterate parents raise Biblically illiterate children, they should EXPECT said children to lose their (pseudo) faith upon adulthood. Such a departure has nothing to do with the child receiving a good education, and everything to do with poor, lazy, and faith-ignorant parenting. The then-adult children end up 'losing' their faith because they had no real faith in the first place. After all, real faith, unlike mere opinion, has substance; that is why real faith, unlike pseudo faith, produces visible 'fruit'/good deeds.
JMO, based on a long life of experience and observation.
I am proud to say that I am old enough to remember Bell Telephone's excellent science series that I waited for in elementary school on old reel-to-reel projectors starring Dr. Frank Baxter.
ReplyDeleteThis was 1958! Science knew then.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-AXBbuDxRY
I honestly don;t know how a science thread turned into Queen Bitch AGAIN....but, let her "shape" the GOP slate. We know her track record, now don't we? Talk about an imploding party grasping at straws!
ReplyDeleteKeep "word salidating," Queenie....
I went to UIUC, a state-funded university, and there were religious groups all over campus. It's not like religion is not available to college students. Mr Santorum might want to consider that people are actually taking a logical look at religion and deciding for themselves they do not believe it. That is not indoctrination. It is the freedom that conservatives claim they love so much.
ReplyDeleteThis is an outrage, but there aren't enough people expressing outrage to change the tide. Maybe the OWS movement will take up this mantle as well. I fear for my daughter who is a scientist and her ability to find a job when she finishes her Phd. Maybe she'll move to Europe. :<
ReplyDelete~physicsmom
Hey there Everyday Freethought--Go Illini!
ReplyDelete--a fellow alumni