Mike Hudack

Hi. I'm Mike Hudack and this is my Tumblr. I'm a high school dropout, the CEO of blip.tv and a former warblogger. Also check out the blip.tv blog.
After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

ericmortensen:

tanya77:

britticisms:

I’m still trying to wrap my head around how they got away with these things:

  • Efforts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures as role models for the state’s large Hispanic population were consistently defeated, prompting one member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out of a meeting late Thursday night, saying, “They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don’t exist.”
  • There were no historians, sociologists or economists consulted at the meetings, though some members of the conservative bloc held themselves out as experts on certain topics.
  • To that end, they made dozens of minor changes aimed at calling into question, among other things, concepts like the separation of church and state and the secular nature of the American Revolution.

  • Mavis B. Knight, a Democrat from Dallas, introduced an amendment requiring that students study the reasons “the founding fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring the government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion above all others.” It was defeated on a party-line vote.

  • In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. They also replaced the word “capitalism” throughout their texts with the “free-enterprise system.” “Let’s face it, capitalism does have a negative connotation,” said one conservative member, Terri Leo. “You know, ‘capitalist pig!’ ”

  • Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)

If these people were less organized and more concerned with beard length, we’d call them Taliban. 

Notes about this post from the Tumblr community:

  1. thatswhatjennysaid reblogged this from celinejade and added:
    wow let’s continue to be ignorant in the 21st century.
  2. vdovault reblogged this from tanya77 and added:
    Shit people they do stuff different down in Texas…for a time it was its own little Republic & they’ve never quite gotten...
  3. sonoluminescense reblogged this from abcsoupdot
  4. lilyliedtome reblogged this from britticisms
  5. bunnicidal reblogged this from bowfolk and added:
    No one in my history class had heard about this, and then my prof filled us in. No one believed her at first on the...
  6. weian-fu reblogged this from bowfolk and added:
    Stay classy, Texas. Stay fucking classy.
  7. bowfolk reblogged this from oldauntamy
  8. irememberhalloween reblogged this from onearmboxer
  9. ohhhannah reblogged this from veronicles and added:
    I would just like to add that in the history of different societies, it is this regression in education (to favor...
  10. onearmboxer reblogged this from veronicles and added:
    I agree, Hurm. Hurm, indeed.
  11. veronicles reblogged this from misterpeace and added:
    I am reblogging this mainly because I couldn’t reblog the continuation of this conversation Dorian. I need to respond to...
  12. stillsograteful reblogged this from inothernews
  13. babywipesenthusiast reblogged this from patentpending and added:
    I don’t care what the textbooks say, I’ll refuse to teach it, or teach otherwise when I start teaching next year. This...
  14. connectingtometaverse reblogged this from thediamondage
  15. thediamondage reblogged this from niki
  16. herbeautytoucheseverything reblogged this from ellebeetee and added:
    After three days of turbulent meetings,...Education on Friday approved a social studies...
  17. davymac reblogged this from bringtheruckuss and added:
    I’m all for people reading about Hayek and Friedman, but at the very same time they’re in a bureaucratic meeting,...
  18. latinforrubbish reblogged this from inothernews and added:
    Oh man, Texas is really going to great lengths to not reinforce any stereotypes about its collective self.
  19. ellebeetee reblogged this from nb808 and added:
    yeah, my kids are going to be reading Howard Zinn out of the womb. WTF is this crap!?!??! THIS just makes my love for...
  20. thepo reblogged this from nb808
  21. patentpending reblogged this from smidgets
  22. raconteurism reblogged this from inothernews and added:
    LOL TEXAS. Keep in mind these are the people who managed to accidentally ban marriage as a whole in an effort to stop...
  23. webringourownblankets reblogged this from inothernews
  24. celinejade reblogged this from alexleefitz and added:
    considering taking advantage of my singaporean citizenship eligibility
  25. lucyfordd reblogged this from starblanketriverchild and added:
    wrong. wrong. wrong.
  26. starblanketriverchild reblogged this from inglouriousbitch and added:
    … The more I read about this.. there are no words, just anger.