Government Rightwing Propagandizing to a Captive Audience, and Calling It … ‘History Class’

The school board proposal that triggered the [student and teacher] walkouts in Jefferson County calls for instructional materials that present positive aspects of the nation and its heritage. It would establish a committee to regularly review texts and course plans, starting with Advanced Placement history, to make sure materials “promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free-market system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights” and don’t “encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law.”

— Denver area students walk out of school in protest, Colleen Slevin and P. Solomon Banda, Associated Press, today

Yup.  Straight out of the German Nazi, Stalinist and current Chinese government playbooks.  Via Joe McCarthy.  Definitely an instructive history lesson.

On that respect-for-authority thing, I’d love to know how this History curriculum will present the Revolutionary War.  Presumably, the school board majority that is proposing this, and that will enforce it, will ask for input from King George III.  But not from, say, George Washington, who’s spinning in his grave and really, really wants to be consulted but won’t be.