The Texas School Book Suppository

Whatever happened to Thomas Jefferson?

That's the question Texas school children might be asking as soon as next year, after the "new and improved" social studies and American history curriculum worms its way into the educational muscle tissue. A generation from now, students could be asking, "Who was Thomas Jefferson?"

How did this happen? An agenda-driven gang of neocon Religious Right infiltrators managed to get themselves elected to the Texas State School Board and with the power of majority working for them, have completely revised education standards in the Lone Star State. Newsweek magazine calls it the "Texas Curriculum Massacre".

Now the "Judeo-Christian heritage" of the Founding Fathers will be taught, but not the philosophy behind the First Amendment's separation of church and state. Thomas Jefferson will be demoted, at the same time elevating other such noted historical figures as Donald Duncan, the putative inventor of … the yo-yo!

The philosophical underpinnings of the American Revolution found in the Enlightenment will be erased, to be replaced by theological maunderings of Thomas Aquinas: "For the knowledge of any truth whatsoever man needs divine help, that the intellect may be moved by God to its act."

Civil Rights? It was responsible for "unrealistic expectations of equal outcomes" among minorities.

Evolution? Trashed in favor of "Intelligent Design", which is really just basic Bible-based creationism dressed up for polite society.

Out: Thurgood Marshall and Cesar Chavez, the Ralph Nader and Ross Perot presidential campaigns.

In: Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, Puritan theologian John Calvin, and the anti-feminist Eagle Forum.

The New Deal? Inarguably Socialist, if not downright Communist, refusing to adhere to our revered "free market" system. It will be de-emphasized in favor of pushing the neocon insurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, the Heritage Foundation, conservative gadfly Phyllis Schlafly, Newt Gingrich's Contract on with America, Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.

The National Rifle Association? Phyllis Schlafly? Really?!!

Remember what George Orwell said in his classic 1984: Those who control the past control the future. Winston Smith, the antihero of the book, worked in something called the Ministry of Truth, which in true Orwellian nomenclature, actually dealt in lies. Whenever The Party needed something in the past changed to match its current policies, Smith's job was to remove the event from newspapers, magazines, encyclopedias, etc., and stick it down The Memory Hole.

And that is what is exactly what is happening in Texas today.

Can it happen in your school? Sadly, yes. Everyone, no matter where you live, needs to pay attention. Attend your local school board meetings and speak up for the progressive values that you hold dear.