History, the Right-Wing Way

Some right-wingers ignore facts as they rewrite U.S. history

Nope, not an April Fools joke.

It's propaganda on the level of the Holocaust deniers, and it's invading your kids' minds like a seeping, brown-shirted virus.

So, all of the sudden, they're eating away at American history's icons, trying to make sense of their own mixed-up philosophy. According to an article by Steven Thomma in the April 1st issue of McClatchy Newspapers, there's a bunch of conservatives in Texas (surprised?) who are rewriting high school texts - again. They're out to challenge such basics as the founders' intentions with separation of church and state, along with an apparent roasting of such historical standouts as Thomas Jefferson, the Jamestown settlers, and Alexander Hamilton. And somehow, they're managing to paint the villainous Joe McCarthy as a hero, and claiming that FDR actually caused the Great Depression (despite his having taken office after the economy was already in trouble).

"We are adding balance," Texas school board member Don McLeroy said. "History has already been skewed. Academia is skewed too far to the left." M'kay...

Certainly history has been up for re-interpretation before, but this is pretty sweeping, seemingly without basis in fact, and geared toward the convenience of the same nuts who've been shoveling this anti-American poop for the past decade. Worse, they're starting, not by web articles or publishing learned papers at the collegiate level - but by altering school books. The school books that parents pay for; that children read.

Of course, the same revisionist information is spreading nationwide via radio, TV and the web, proffered by the more pungently conservative politicians and pundits. Some of the things being said are so far to the right that even conservative intellectuals scoff.

What to do? Save your old school books. They may be the only place to find the truth...