Big and ever growing story from Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and
his apparent one man “fascist state” control idea vis-à-vis his constant attack
on public education and most cultural/social issues the two articles below
address.
The first story gives the background his backers from MSNBC with the following headline:
“The group behind some of DeSantis' most draconian measures”
The Florida Citizens Alliance now wants to
ban climate science from textbooks. And they have the governor's ear.
The second article that follows that story is an excellent
article from NEWSWEEK with a very informative video segment with update on DeSantis
with their headline:
“Ron DeSantis Suffers Blow As
Court Rejects His ‘Dystopian’ Anti-Woke Law”
Florida
conservatives are engaged in what appears to be the most fervent attack on historical truths and fact-based school
curricula in the country.
The state's right-wing lawmakers have pushed for a slew of bans prohibiting lessons about racism, LGBTQ people and gender inequality. And a major group routinely at the center of these fights is the Florida Citizens Alliance. The alliance is a conservative nonprofit that claims on its website “...that children who attend public schools are being indoctrinated in a “system that undermines their individual rights and destroys our nation’s founding principles and family values.”
The Miami New Times broke down the alliance’s
modus operandi when they reported
on its ties to DeSantis that year. The group also compiles a yearly
“Objectionable Materials” dossier of books and teaching materials to which the
Alliance objects. The group appears to grow upset whenever it thinks school
texts promote “Islam, socialism, sex, evolutionary science, or gun control” for
example.
The Alliance has issued line-by-line objections to numerous
history books — its complaints usually just boil down to the books simply not
being conservative enough.
Group members have complained, for example, about everything
from positive depictions of journalists to negative depictions of Ronald Reagan.
The alliance’s fearmongering is a
major source of the right-wing hysteria in Florida over anti-racist
school teachings, which have been scapegoated as “critical race theory (CRT).”
In several Florida counties, the alliance has been the primary
backer of oppressive book bans. And as The Miami Times referred to, the
organization’s ties to conspiratorial extremism don’t stop at lessons about
identity.
This is a group full of right-wing quacks that enables other
right-wing quacks’ worst — and dumbest — impulses. If you need a video that
drives that point home, here you’ll
find the alliance echoing the nonsensical, education-related rantings of
Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who pleaded
guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI and was later pardoned by Trump.
The Daily Beast has detailed the alliance’s fervent attempts
to whitewash
textbooks that teach about climate change, which a leader of the group
called a “philosophy of the academic aristocracy” in 2018. That’s a particularly
extreme claim in Florida, where the evidence of climate change is arguably more obvious than anywhere else in the United States. But as I’m sure
you’re beginning to understand, the alliance is not a fact-based
organization.
According to the Daily Beast, the alliance’s members have
previously combed school textbooks “for violations of their beliefs, creating
carefully detailed reports on how many times, and in what context, elementary
and high school students were learning about rising seas, or melting ice in
Antarctica.”
Those efforts preceded the group’s successful push for a
GOP-backed bill allowing residents to challenge the use of specific texts in school curricula.
Florida Republicans are enacting laws that reflect the
alliance’s warped and bigoted approach to education, and more people ought to
know how sinister this relationship is. It’s a prime example of the danger that
looms when right-wing figures have the ear of powerful politicians.
My 2 Cents: With all that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has done or tried to do in FL it is apparent he aims to rule as a one-man show – more commonly called being a fascist – hate to use that word – but the facts of his actions are proof plenty.
Extract from ESQUIRE is spot on: The business of state, which for DeSantis is often the business of his own personal politics, will continue.
His (1) fifteen-week abortion ban may become even more restrictive, and (2) concealed carry of weapons without a permit is back on the legislative agenda.
In addition to a (3) brutal campaign of suppression of queer identity, DeSantis has (4) supported his crusade against Critical Race Theory (CRT) by trying to destroy New College with extremist (and incompetent) board appointees, and by sending a letter to all public universities asking for information on their race and diversity teachings — even as professors quit rather than subject themselves to censorship.
CRT allows far-right Republicans to combine a strawman with a bogeyman in pursuit of the perfect bogus woke war, while the demonization makes it hard for colleges to effectively serve their students.
DeSantis may be less flamboyant than Trump, but he supports a style and substance of governance just as inflammatory.
He weaponizes others’ emotions to create an image of himself as imbued with the qualities of some quasi-religious savior of Florida while actually making people’s lives worse.
He then, over and over again, continues to inflame the discourse so the sleight of hand that is his charisma doesn’t gutter out — because the issue contains the igniting ember, not anything in his personality.
Thanks for stopping by.
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