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CHANGING WORDS - UPDATING HISTORY
1984 IS FINALLY HERE

By: Jim Moore

"As soon as all the corrections had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed in the files.

This continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound tracks, cartoons, photographs---every kind of literature and documentation which might hold any political or ideological significance.

Day by day, the past was brought up to date. In this way, every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any news, or expression of opinion which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record.

All history was scraped clean, as often as necessary. In no case, would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place.

And so it was with every recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain."   --Excerpted from the book, 1984, by George Orwell

On April 30, Author Anita Vogel, writing for Fox News, reported that a textbook review process in California has changed or eliminated all references to our Founding Fathers-and other taboos-leaving many citizens to charge the state with distorting history in the name of political correctness.

Furthermore, no books will contain any phrases judged to be sexist or insensitive. Henceforth, our Founders will be called, "The Framers." Snowman will become "snowperson." Grandparents are called "older persons." The word jungle is now "rain forest." The world "devil" has disappeared entirely.

A direct assault on historical accuracy will forbid showing American Indians with long braids, in rural settings, or on reservations.

Worst of all, this twisting of the lexicon and dumbing down of American history and lore is putting textbook publishers in a bind. They say that if they don't adopt the changes to textbooks made in California and Texas they could suffer severe economic consequences.

The logical reality of that, to this writer, means a cut-off of bribery money from the government. Author Diane Ravitch calls it, "Outright censorship." On the other hand, Sue Stickel, of the Board of Education says, "Our textbooks should be free of any stereotyping." (Even if, I presume, that means the obliteration and rewriting of all American history.)

* * * * *

Do you see the similarity in what these two writers are telling us? You should.

Dictatorial mind control begins slowly and unnoticeably. A change here, an alteration there, a substitution somewhere else, and suddenly you wake up with your mouth clamped shut.

Worse, your mind is compressed into a ball of flaccid matter that can neither think for or beyond itself, initiate any ideas, or react independently.

And the one place, of course, to begin indoctrinating the population with this kind of tyrannical "groupthink" is, where else? in the schools, where young, fertile minds are open and pliable and can therefore be easily molded so that, as adults, they will have conformed without a struggle to the Party (State) line.

George Orwell was right. In 1984, he predicted the terror of Big Brother's mind manipulation and control. It was slow in coming, but it's no longer coming. It's here.


"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."
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Jim Moore is a free-lance political writer and is a regular columnist for Ether Zone.

Jim Moore can be reached at Jmoore1819@aol.com

Published in the May 16, 2003 issue of  Ether Zone.
Copyright © 1997 - 2003 Ether Zone.

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...at The Ministry of Truth. Apply: Langely Viginia or 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

...of America began decades ago, when, in the words of my mother, who had children in public schools for 31 years, "the PhDs took over education".

The current removal of "offensive" terms and replacing history with political correctness has nothing to do with the current administration, no matter how much the Left would have us believe. As a matter of fact, it is the Left's doing.

Well, I remember some politically correct terminology from when I was a kid in the fifties and early sixties. Like calling the slave trader and pirate Francis Drake an "explorer" and "defender of England." Or calling the extermination of the American Indians the "settlement of the west" by "pioneers." Or calling defending capitalism "defending freedom." Or calling the militant abolitionists "extremists" and the polticians who wanted to make a deal with the slaveowners "moderates." Or calling people who wanted to enforce the Constitution in the post-Civil War South "carpet-baggers" and "scaliwags." Or calling unrestricted submarine warfare by the Germans in World War II a good reason for the US to enter the War and calling unrestricted submarine warfare by the US against Japan in World War II "heroic actions by our Navy." Or calling capitalism "the free enterprise system." Or calling Franco's Spain and Duvalier's Haiti part of the "Free World." Or calling the militarist and outright racist Theodore Roosevelt a hero or a "progressive." I guess one person's political correctness is another person's objective truth.

... when you say it has been going on for a long time. If you follow the threads back far enough you get into the early 30's.

A very good book, written by a woman who worked in the Reagan Administration's Dept. of Education, is: "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America" by Charlotte Thompson Iserbyte. It is a huge book, well researched, and footnoted with references to original documents.

You can get a taste by going to her Web Site: http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/

Here's a good recent article: http://www.newswithviews.com/iserbyt/iserbyt1.htm

However, as it has gone on for some time and the evidence is clear. You need only look at declining test scores and the declining sophistication of Text Books and Tests to get a real eye full.

Compare McGuffy's Eclectic Reader to those given our Children now.

There are several reference tests floating around the Web. The one I seem to recall is one for Kansas City 8th Grade Graduation. Most Adults today would have difficulty getting a passing score - even "well educated" ones.

Education and Historical Accuracy are issues that transcend ideological differences. It is fundamental. A Representative Republic cannot operate properly without a well educated and informed populace.

The notion of "political correctness" was constructed to confront the dehumanization of
women and people of color, realizing that certain terms in the American use of the English
language serve to objectify women, Native Americans, and other racial minorities. Unfortunately,
the notion has been co-opted by moderate and conservative forces as an excuse to undermine
efforts by educators to develop a more critical and analytical pedagogy. Traditional history
books that use problematic terminology are not such a bad thing if out nation's teacher are
well trained enough to educate students on how to look at certain notions and ideas critically.
But rather than develop new standards and ideals for educators, ones that would be
concurrent with European and Asian models that allow students to actually think through
the knowledge they are being taught, state bureaucrats have instead undermined these
ideals by merely focusing on the superficial dimension of the information. This further suggests
how they are more interested in students memorizing and regurgitating information (the
banking model that Paulo Freire critiques in his landmark Pedagogy of the Oppressed) rather
than actually thinking about it.

As opposed to the comments of the ignorant Mr D. above, it is actually the work of Ph.D.'s and EDD
that have moved our educational system forward rather than those of state bureaucrats (granted
some of which do have Ph.D's) and textbook publishers (no doubt the other faction behind this).

The other problem is that missteps like the erroneous re-writing of textbooks along facetious
pseudo-PC guidelines--because this is not a case of true political correctness--is that it gives
more fuel to ignorant reactionaries, like D above, who really don't give a shit about public education
altogether (especially when they construct reactionary measures like Prop 13, 187, 229, et, al.)

Enough Said.

I think Friere's "Banking Concept of Education" is a good description of the Wrote Regurgitation and Programming that goes on in Government Schools. (I disagree with his Economic concepts but that is another debate.)

May I assume that I am the "ignorant Mr. D" to whom you refer?

Everything in this thread is in large part the reason my wife and I are home-schooling our children. I've seen what public schools do to children, and I will have none of it.

No matter who you think is responsible for the mess, either ignorant reactionaries or pompous stuffed shirts, it IS a mess. My children will be far better off for having not been exposed to it.

Lets throw some money at it like the military (right
daveman?) always bleats about. They get fed,they always do.

The schools and clinics get starved and environmental qualities drop.
Our current priorities have been highjacked by these
psyops terrorists. Right, daveman? It's easy to see to
just about anyone.

How anyone could have a vocabulary of such big words and be so ignorant is beyond belief. Everyone cares about education; just the same as we all care about the environment, humanitarianism, etc. not just you bozos on the left.

Do we need to throw money at the schools? Yes.

We also need to only hire qualified (board certified), trained, educated school teachers. And we need to force them to do their jobs or send them on their merry way. Being a school teacher in America is all about vacation time. They work a pitiable five days per week, 9 months out of the year, and get every imaginable holiday off, not to mention some of the ridiculous reasons they come up with for closing schools nowadays, and then blame the parents for the poor performance of their school districts.

Hoooey!

We need school year freaking around! And we need teachers that teach. And we need to pay those people an honest wage. And that’s just a start….

We could also use some resources to go the the damn, nearing extinction, libraries.

...money is the real issue. Prior to the change in education methods, ca. 1930, we spent very little on Public Education yet had one of the best systems in the world.

You don't "Throw Money" at a failing enterprise. You first take a look at what was going on when it was successful. Then find out what was changed. Change it back to what was successful.

You don't reward an enterprise for failure. To do so removes any incentive to succeed and perpetuates the failure.

I do however agree that our Libraries could use more funding and the Military less. Given that we are now spending more on our military than the rest of the world combined one must question how much "bang for the buck" we really need and how many bucks we need to go bang.

The military budget is definately bloated. I don't like paying high taxes either.

As a conservative thinker, I am very proud of our armed forces and certainly belive they deserve every penny they get for doing their jobs. And I want them to have the most reliable and best equipment and training that money can buy. I don't want any other nation in the world to be able to even come close to our troops.

But there is a lot of wasteful spending in the government and the military in general. The wheels of Democracy are kept well lubricated with greenbacks.

But I tell you what. I'd give half of every penny I earned for the rest of my life to be able to stay in America and indulge in this free society.

Yep, the libraries could use more books and less computers. They need to get the noses of the kids these days out from behind the monitors and in between the pages of some books. My son can't do his seventh grade math homework with the compulsive desire to whip out a calculator, or write a book report without typing it up and researching on "the net". It's pathetic really. Wish all computers would just self-destruct. We're better off without them.

You're a libertarian. You don't want any of your private
property returned into the main stream. Face it, you do
owe the social structure maintenance. It's the hemorrhaging
of our military budget that is screwing us.
Please, my friend
I hope you don't hold local (sometimes terribly provincial)
standards to be the end all. Areas of the country that are
suffering economic or racist deterioration fall into the back waters. This land is prosperous enough with a just distribution of services and resources, to give anyone who
has the wish, the ability to succeed. It wont hurt.

Nah, I disagree. I grew up in Georgia. Attended public school for the most part. You can’t find a more racially segregated society than Georgia. We had separate proms in high school, just like O’reilly has been upset about recently. That’s nothing new. I bet there’s not a county in the state that doesn’t have one.

But I think that, in general, the kids like it better that way. Blacks and whites. But just because they still live in the dark ages in Georgia, doesn’t mean they’re falling behind. I got a great public education in a small Georgia (backwoods) town. I was motivated to do so mostly so I could get the hell out of there. But I firmly believe that the books are there (not that they couldn’t use more), the paychecks are there for the teachers, and they have every essential element they need to make public school work.

The problem is the fattening of America. We are so bloated by our free society, that we’ve become stagnant and lazy as a people. Teachers want more money to do less. Parents fail to discipline their children and turn out unruly brats on society. And I can’t so much blame the parents, because they’re afraid to spank their kids for fear some liberal minded crack-pot will come take their children away and throw their butts in the slammer. So unruly kids grow up to be unruly, liberal minded, dissident, slovenly teachers. And the cycle continues.

We had better schools in the 1930s because, before that, kids had to work on the farm, or in the industrial sweat shops, to help feed their families. The were disciplined and tough. And when daddy said, “You can either get your ass out in the fields or get your ass in the school” the kids picked school. And when a brat mouthed off, he or she got to visit the woodshed. Nowadays you’ve got idiots raising idiots. We certainly don’t want an idiot spanking his or her children because they’re too idiotic to know when they’ve gone too far.

What we need is an Financial revolution in this country. A capital revolution. An economical revolution. Right now, everyone has too much of everything. What they need is not enough of anything. That tends to change an individual’s outlook on life, when his belly is growling and he ain’t got no easy way to fix it septin’ to get a job. A depression so miserable that it’s beyond compare. An economic gulag forcing people to either work for survival or to not survive at all.

You want the American educational system to be what it once was? You think times have changed in America for the worse?

Me too.

But there’s no way to go back short of misery.

...this is also my extrapolation of current trends
with heavy respect towards the addiction towards
pointless consumption. But it's part of the commercial push for profits. I've always thought a change in cultural style involving the distaste of conspicuous consumption. New
stuff, you know, shiny energy consumptive toys and life styles. poo poo

Anyone who likes the way things were in the 1930's should keep in mind that most students dropped out of school between the 7th and 10th grades and it was taken for granted that only the wealthy and well-to-do would attend college (in some backward parts of the country high school.) In Cincinnati as late as the 1970's the majority of the adult population had less than a high school education, and some Kentucky school districts had a drop-out rate of 75 percent in that same decade. When I lived in Lexington, KY, for a year in 1984-1985, it was reported that there were still adult residents of the state who had not attended school for one day in their lives. The ruling elite apparantly felt that no schooling was needed for people who would spend their lives digging coal, feeding race horses or planting tobacco. Besides, if they knew how to read they might get hold of some dangerous pro-union leaflets.

Put that bottle of Jack Daniel down and say something for Christ's sake. I mean here I am, laying cards on the table, and all I get is a nod, and a poo poo.

Well poo poo to you too boo boo.

quite a few decent points, and too many to individ. respond to, and like my dog says; gimme more, or i'll bitchbitchbitch
2pesos: restrict $$ and promote reading, of all kinds, whether classics, modern, computer, comicbook or whatever; At least in the early grades.--
the interest in reading, alone, covers the bases&^^^&
--_--

I needed that.

does not the poo poo I display smell like violets?
I agree with you, is that so bad?

Just put a little energy into it next time. Especially when you see I am...

Dog, - I am not trying to be a cheapskate I just want to see effective education. It is one of my pet peeves. The point I was trying to make but did not make fully is simply that you can’t continue funneling money into the schools without looking at what works and what does not. And by all reasonable measures our Schools are failing to educate. Contrary to Meyer’s jaundiced view the school system in the 1930’s provided an excellent education and was not limited to the wealthy. My Mother came from a dirt poor family that was bankrupted by the dust bowl. My Grandfather lost his crops 3 years running and it busted him. Nevertheless she graduated from High School. And she received a good education. The year she graduated from High School stands out in my mind (1947) because a recent study (which I cannot recall the source of off the top of my head but the numbers have been all over the place) asserted that the General Education Level of a 1947 High School Graduate was equivalent to a current Bachelor’s Recipient. My point is that the Curriculum and the manner of instruction have much more impact on the final product, a student with a good basic education, than the amount of money spent. Washington D.C. has one of the highest per student expenditures in the country and are praying that Mississippi does not drop out of the Union as they would then be dead last.

The hick schools I received my basic reading and writing training in had much less to spend than the big city schools that I ended up graduating from - yet when I transferred to the City Schools I was over a year ahead of their curriculum. And I am not giving myself “airs” - anyone who had attended the Rural School System I started in would have been in the same boat. They had not implemented a “modern” curriculum and had this silly notion that they were supposed to make sure we could read and write. I learned Phonics from the Second Grade on and had to manually write out every number from zero to one thousand. In the Third Grade I had to memorize my Times Tables up through 12 Times 12. This was all done on a comparative “shoestring”.

To Meyer: I think a regions local culture has a lot more to do with how much education people pursue. The little Rocky Mountain One Horse Town I started out in had a strong education ethic. I received a better education than what my peers were receiving in Big City Schools with Bigger Budgets. However, you were expected to learn to read and write and be competent at basic mathematics. The Schools REQUIRED a foreign language from the 5th Grade on (French, German, or Spanish). As for the fact that Middle Class and above were primarily the people who went on to College back in the 30’s - I will grant the point, but that was also at the height of the Depression. However, given that the High Schools were so much better at their job, and students actually graduated with a good basic education, goes a long way to vitiate the point. There are many jobs in the town I currently live in that require a 4 Year Degree that 40 Years ago would have asked only for a High School Diploma. Employers in businesses dealing with complex language and basic math need someone able to perform them. Unfortunately the Government Schools are not doing the job. And there were a good many Scholarships available to those 1930’s and 40’s High School Graduates who excelled. Life was rough and survival did in many cases demand that a kid leave school to help put food on the family table. You do what you have to do. My Dad dropped out at the end of 9th Grade. However, he also went on to become a Professional Pilot and held Instructors Ratings in several classes of aircraft. He also attended Night School while he worked to support himself and his family.
As an aside - while I am not anti-union I think you overestimate the impact current unions have on working conditions and wages. Unions were effective in breaking the back of abusive management many moons ago but have now largely been bought off or co-opted by the “ruling elites” (and the Mob) we both despise. There is as well a downside to them in that they are cliquish and clannish. Try getting into the Electrician, or Plumbers, Unions unless you already have a family member on the inside. It is not impossible - but nearly.


To daveman: This is I think a first. I applaud your decision to home school your children and it demonstrates that you are a caring parent. I take back half of all the bad things I have ever said against you. Make sure you hide the computer and the calculators until they can actually DO math and not just punch buttons.

Diogenes, that was then, when the classes were different as they are now
(by design, I believe, to curtail this pesky tendency towards analysis.
for instance, the bazaar method of teaching reading ‘whole word’) and
even during the height of the depression, libraries didn’t close.
I agree with you and Eric on higher bars for teachers because this is Good
Investment in a calm. sane society, where we live.
It’s still worth our sweat and labor to embrace our brothers and sisters with
equal privilege to the above mentioned items. Sorry.

...I agree. You just can't have us "commoners" learning such things as Logic, Math, and History. We might actually start thinking for themselves.
It is interesting that in many locales, up until the late 60's, many Grade School teachers were "Normal School" Teachers. They were High School Graduates who had gone through a training program. Which makes sense - it does not take a 4 year degree to teach Grade School. And it is an Educrat myth that it does.

I recall an interview with a lady who retired as a Teacher and Became an education activist. The comment that stuck was: "We have another name for students taught to read by the "whole-word" method. We call them illiterate." Funny in a sad way.

It is a first.

While the computer and calculator are good tools, it is very important to be able to operate the Human Brain 1.0 first.

That's a large focus of ours.