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War is brutal and impersonal … If we really saw war, what war does to young minds and bodies, it would be harder to embrace the myth of war.

- Chris Hedges, columnist at TruthDig

Frame grabs from a video posted on WikiLeaks.org, showing a U.S. Army Apache helicopter firing on a group of people in Baghdad on July 12, 2007. UPI/WikiLeaks.org Photo via Newscom Content © 2010 Newscom

The fog of war has cleared to reveal a storm of controversy raging around the publication of a classified video footage of an attack by U.S. Army Apache helicopters against Iraqis in 2007. The air strike resulted in the wounding of two children and the death of at least a dozen people, including two Reuters employees, Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. In Dialogic’s News and Analysis section, we took a look at the discussion from around the blogosphere. However, the narrative begs further discussion as to what it says about our society and culture.

While the responses to the attack range from moral outrage to unqualified support, I want to highlight a middle voice. Anthony Martinez, writing at his personal blog, A Look Inside, gives us his response to events of the video. Claiming his experience as both an infantryman on the ground as well as hours spent at consoles directing aerial traffic in Iraq, he offers what I feel is a thoughtful and mediated response to the events of this helicopter strike:

All in all, the engagement clearly went bad. I would have objected when I was a private first-class pulling triple duty as an RTO, driver, and vehicle gunner. I would have objected when I was a sergeant working well above my pay-grade as the Brigade Battle NCO. My assessment is based on my experiences in that very theater of operations. I did not see a threat that warranted an engagement at any point. I did, however, see the elements indicating such a threat could develop at any moment. (note: As I did, in fact, already know several things about the situation when I viewed this footage I cannot say with any certainty that had I viewed the exact same footage at the time of the incident that I would not have concluded the camera was an RPG as well.) People can make their judgements however they wish, but what is clearly visible is not the entire picture.

In my non-professional tactical opinion, I tend to agree with Martinez. The threat wasn’t imminent, but there was definitely the potential for one to develop. This is the fog of war — the complexities of modern warfare* that this video reveals to us. The new battlefield fails to provide a clear enemy or even limit itself to a bounded “field of battle,” choosing instead to spill into the ambiguity of urban areas where combat zones and homes occupy the same place; where insurgents and innocents routinely wear the same clothing. War no longer takes place on the grand battlefields of some bygone “Stratego” age of Napoleonic armies facing off in remote locations with colorful uniforms and flags to clearly delineate friend or foe, civilian or military. Writing for The American Prospect, Matthew Yglesias puts the problem on the ground into perspective:

It’s not that our troops are bad people. It’s that war is dangerous. The consequences of not pulling the trigger when you think you see someone swinging a rocket launcher in the direction of your helicopter are extremely severe — you die. Your friends die. On the flip side, the consequences of being a bit too trigger-happy are, of course, terrible for the people who wind up dead and bad for the mission but not so severe for you personally.

In a way, this video reminds us of the brutality of the wars in which we as a nation are engaged. A caller’s comments on Talk of the Nation highlight the unfortunate surprise we seem to receive every time the gruesome experience of war comes home to confront us and our relative safety. When asked by host Neal Conan what he had learned from the video, the caller responded:

Well, I guess I – what I think mostly, it’s how far removed we are from that world and how it isn’t on our radar and basically, how I feel we bury our heads in the sand and we don’t hear about it. And when something like this comes out, it’s very clear that things are going on that we’re not really tied into.

What the caller describes as a type of head-in-the-sand ignorance, Tom Engelhardt at Tomdispatch.com equates to a form of Olympian arrogance. Noting that we as a nation have not lived the experience of war in our own neighborhoods, he discards the argument that we suffer from a failure of imagination, describing it instead as a failure of empathy, driven by romantic notions of our role in the world:

We prefer to think of their deaths as so many accidents or mistakes — “collateral damage” — when they are the norm, not the exception, not what’s collateral in such wars. We prefer to imagine ourselves bringing the best (of values and intentions) to a backward, ignorant world and so invariably make ourselves sound far kindlier than we are. Like the gods of Olympus, we have a tendency to flatter ourselves … while creating a language of war that suits our tender sensibilities about ourselves.

Military personnel are trained to create psychological distance between themselves and their enemies, providing them with the ability to override their natural refusal to kill a fellow human being. Perhaps we at home suffer from our own form of distance, removed from the harsh realities of warfare. Aided by Yglesias’ charge that this new type of warfare shields the public from its harsh reality, we may be seduced by a more sanitized understanding of combat, where terms like “collateral damage” damage hide the stark reality that people are dying. Chris Hedges, a veteran war correspondent elegantly describes the inelegance of war and how it is represented to us back at home:

Filmic and most photographic images of war are shorn of the heart-pounding fear, awful stench, deafening noise and exhaustion of the battlefield. Such images turn confusion and chaos, the chief element of combat, into an artful war narrative. They turn war into porn … This is why we are given war’s perverse and dark thrill but are spared from seeing war’s consequences. The mythic visions of war keep it heroic and entertaining. And the press is as guilty as Hollywood.

It is this artful narrative of war that is undermined by the ambiguous reality presented in leaked videos such as this one. We are allowed to see the messiness of the battlefield, a place where cameramen mingle with combatants, that frustrates the myth of war as a glorious and good. Instead of a necessary evil that occasionally leads to “collateral damage,” we learn that war is always marred by indiscriminate violence. This video reminds us that we cannot neatly package our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into a simple, sanitary box and push it into the recesses of our minds. Instead, videos like this remind us that the price of war is always more than we bargain for.

The question that confronts us now is: how do we respond?

Will we continue to bury the real price of war between our incessant debates between left and right, hawk and dove, conservative and liberal, as people continue to die in our name? Will we chastise these helicopter pilots for making crude jokes and callous remarks in order to ignore the thought that day in and day out, our soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen continue to suffer the dehumanization of combat because we sanction it – or worse, because we demand it? Will we continue to deny the connection between our national self-interest and our rapacious appetite for resources and wealth that implicates us in the deaths portrayed in this video, along with countless others?

Or will we overcome our ignorance, set aside our arrogance, and grasp our inherent agency to become peacemakers and work toward a just and equitable world where we might put an end to our need for violence and war?

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* In reality, we should probably be using the term postmodern warfare given that combat now blurs the clear boundaries of the modern nation-state. Combat takes place between large, militarized nations and small, covert insurgent groups that claim no certain political nationalities and do not play by what they see as the arbitrary geopolitical “rules” of the modern era.

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These past few weeks and months have been interesting on the political scene. The national picture has witnessed massive legislative and foreign policy shifts that will likely mark significant changes in how we understand ourselves as a nation. And while this may turn out to be a good thing, in the short run it may leave us feeling uncertain, unsettled, and perhaps even confused. For some, this is already the case, and the results have become chaotic.

The recent reports of violence should be quite disturbing to us as Christians. Vandalism of congressional offices and private homes – even a potential anthrax threat to a U.S. Representative – mark a rise in what can only be described as hateful acts. While I am sympathetic to the idea that many people have great concerns about the changing political landscape (meaning most specifically health care reform), I find myself in disbelief every time I turn to the news and receive yet another report of violence in response to a Congressional bill.

All of this has only served to turn me back to my bible and reread the words and stories of Jesus. I’m reminded of that great commandment, where Jesus reminds us to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength – and the equally important second part, to love neighbor as self. It seems that this should speak with clarity to the present situation: we’re not always going to agree, but we are all children of God, and we need to recognize that in one another.

However, as I was contemplating this even further, I was struck by another aspect of Jesus – his numerous associations with tax collectors. There are perhaps no better examples of someone becoming that dreaded “other” than a fellow Hebrew who would “turn traitor” and work for the Roman occupational government. Yet even here, Jesus defied the going discourse of distrust and made friends with tax collectors. (Matthew and Zaccheus come quickly to mind.)

It occurs to me that we are in a period of cultural instability and political change, and this is becoming uncomfortable for everyone, both for and against. And as a religious leader, I’m reminded on a daily basis that this climate of hostility and sometimes even hatred calls for us as Christians to live out our faith principles even as we live out our political principles. We don’t all have to agree with one another about health care, or immigration reform, or whatever the issue of the day may be, but we are called to disagree with one another in a manner that respects our common dignity and humanity.

Living the hope of resurrection,

Clint

The language of violence always presages violence. I watched it in war after war from Latin America to the Balkans. The impoverishment of a working class and the snuffing out of hope and opportunity always produce angry mobs ready to kill and be killed. A bankrupt, liberal elite, which proves ineffectual against the rich and the criminal, always gets swept aside, in times of economic collapse, before thugs and demagogues emerge to play to the passions of the crowd. I have seen this drama. I know each act. I know how it ends. I have heard it in other tongues in other lands. I recognize the same stock characters, the buffoons, charlatans and fools, the same confused crowds and the same impotent and despised liberal class that deserves the hatred it engenders.

“We are ruled not by two parties but one party,” Cynthia McKinney, who ran for president on the Green Party ticket, told me. “It is the party of money and war. Our country has been hijacked. And we have to take the country away from those who have hijacked it. The only question now is whose revolution gets funded.”

Read the rest of the article.

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Last week the Pentagon made a not entirely unexpected move to raise the standards for prosecution of military personnel under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Not surprisingly, voices within the military immediately began creating a stir about issues of conscience and freedom of religion, using the same tired logic surrounding hate crimes legislation here in Oklahoma. This was paralleled by the logistical argument enunciated by Air Force Gen. Norton A. Schwartz while testifying before Congress, in which he asked that legislators not “perturb the force” in time of war. While I have a difficult time understanding how the removal of over 13,000 service members under DADT since its inception doesn’t qualify as perturbing the force, especially considering that over 800 of those removed from service had critical skills such as Arabic, I find it even more frustrating that those opposed to removing this unjust policy continue to trot out the same collection of unfounded arguments. Ruth Marcus at TruthDig appears to share my frustrations:

WASHINGTON - MARCH 18: People sign their names during a rally in support of a repeal of the 'Don't Ask, Don t Tell' policy March 18, 2010 at the Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Perturb the force? Of course, the same arguments could be—in fact, they were—made about racial integration. It is particularly infuriating that the generals would invoke the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as an excuse for not lifting the ban. If anything, “don’t ask, don’t tell” has been an impediment to the military during these operations. In an era of stop-loss recalls because forces have been stretched so thin, thousands of service members have been discharged because of their sexuality.

Yet the problem with these arguments is that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is far more than a logistical matter. Even though Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen is correct to be “troubled” by a policy that “forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” the issues that he and the Congress are failing to consider are the personal ramifications of this policy. Lt. Dan Choi, a West Point grad and Arabic linguist who was discharged for outing himself, points out how DADT cuts much deeper than military politics:

“What’s inhumane about ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is the fact that soldiers have to lie. It’s the only federal policy that enforces shame, particularly because these are soldiers willing to risk their lives to protect America … The fundamental reason to get rid of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is that it sacrifices, violates and compromises the integrity of all soldiers, not just gay soldiers.”

However, we must acknowledge that the problems created by this policy extend far beyond the scope of the military. The social ramifications of DADT speak directly to the heart of the discourse over sexuality in the national culture. Bradford Schmidt at Technorati sheds light on the broader issue:

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” is not just an invasion into the private thoughts and lives of American servicemen and women, it’s a federal policy that defines the relative worth of human beings based on how they live their private lives and whom they chose to love … It is absolutely indefensible that a time when human beings are still berated, insulted, discriminated against, and beaten because of their sexuality, there are laws on the books that reaffirm in the minds of bigots everywhere that gay men and women have less value than straight men and women.

This devaluing of human life carries real freight in the social and cultural discourse. It functions like a double edged sword that cuts the LGBTQIA community in both directions. While codifying “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” provides a legal justification for bigotry and hatred, it also stabs at the heart of community and dialogue. As Leyla Farah at Cause+Effect points out, the ability to share one’s stories is critical:

At a basic level, it could be argued that our community only exists as a function of our personal, shared stories. LGBT people grow up, often with a vague feeling that we’re somehow different, but we’re not sure why. We come out, often in turmoil and fear. We live and love, often in the face of real danger and hardship.

It’s these shared experiences, and our varied and personal stories about our journeys through them, that form the foundation of our community. We don’t share gender or skin color or geography or language. There’s nothing visibly apparent that binds us together. It is the telling of our stories – and our ability to find ourselves in each others experiences – that makes us who we are.

When we can neither ask about, nor tell, our stories we are effectively cut off from community. We are robbed of our ability to connect with one another. We are left isolated and vulnerable.

Whether President Obama addresses the military policy or not … the fact remains that LGBT people must have the right, and the ability, to tell our stories before we can truly make progress.

This is a sad reminder that the power of discourse belongs to those who control the discourse. As Farah reminds us, people of varying sexual orientations are simply seeking safe space in which to create communities where stories might be shared and identity might be explored. Unfortunately, the hetero majority continues to use policies like DADT to enforce the arbitrary binaries of “gay” and “straight,” and in doing so freezes not only the discourse between both communities, but the internal discourse within these communities as well. Simply unclenching the fist of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” isn’t good enough. Now we have to extend the open hand of dialogue in mutuality and respect.

Oklahoma currently has tough, good laws that include hate crimes laws. Any murder or brutal assault is hateful. That is the problem with singling out something more with this federal law.  I believe this legislation far exceeds the powers of government over states as outlined in the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  I am also very concerned that this loosely defined and ill-conceived legislation could be used to target people’s belief, freedom to associate in groups, right to assemble on issues, as well as target people’s right to free speech.

The Oklahoma State Capitol building. (Photo by Daniel Mayer, used under Creative Commons 3.0)

What Russell fails to mention is that Oklahoma’s current statute does not include a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity as motivations for a hate crime.  In his rush to defend the privileges of the empowered, Senator Russell runs roughshod over the basic human rights of members of the LGBTQIA community.  As a commenter on my previous post pointed out, the failure to prosecute the perpetrators of hate crimes creates an environment of fear that robs all potential victims of an ideologically motivated crime of their very human dignity.  The Leadership Conference provides another devastating example of the non-prosecution of hate crimes in their publication, Confronting the New Face of Hate: Hate Crimes in America 2009:

In Greenville, South Carolina on May 21, 2007, Sean Kennedy, a gay man, died of injuries sustained after he was attacked outside a bar. While making derogatory comments regarding Kennedy’s sexual orientation, the assailant fatally beat and punched him until he fell, hitting his head on the pavement. The killer was originally charged with murder, but his charge was reduced to involuntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to five years in prison, which was suspended to three years with credit for the seven months he had already served. He was also ordered to attend both anger management and drug/alcohol management classes. No hate crime was charged as South Carolina is one of only five states (along with Arkansas, Georgia, Wyoming, and Indiana) that do not have a penalty-enhancement hate crime law.

To defend the rights of so-called straight people when the lives of LGBTQIA people are at stake is a slap at true justice.  Yet the manner in which Russell proposes to deny human dignity as he defends the privilege of empowered people adds further insult to injury.  While he quibbles over freedom of speech and expression, victims of hate crimes are left to wonder if those oft quoted words; “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” hold any meaning for them at all.  If we are to take that declaration seriously and acknowledge that all humans are created equally, then these tactics of shutting people out of the discussion about their own sexuality and/or identity are no longer acceptable nor morally defensible.  SB 1965 is just another method by which freedom of speech is used to avoid the relationality of dialogue and uphold the privileges of the oppressors while destroying the lives of the oppressed.

So it’s time for Oklahomans who are in favor of dignity and dialogue, relationship and justice, to stand together and oppose this bill.  Through some legislative trickery (which I hope to blog more about later), this proposed legislation moved very rapidly through the Senate and has already made its way into the House.  After being second read, SB 1965 was referred to the House Judiciary Committee, where it must pass a committee vote before it can be debated before the entire House of Representatives.  The Equality Network has already established a website where you can email the membership of the Judiciary committee and urge them to vote against SB 1965.  However, with the next scheduled meeting of the Judiciary committee on Monday, March 29 and no posted  agenda for which bills will be considered,* now is the time to make the most of your voice and snail mail an old fashioned letter to the members of this committee.  Repeated activist workshops have stressed the value of sending actual letters, and I would encourage you to join me in doing so.  I’m including a link to a copy of my letter to Representative McCullough to offer you some thoughts as to how you might address the subject in your own correspondence and a listing (below) of the representatives on the Judiciary committee along with their mailing addresses and phone numbers.  You might also find helpful talking points and examples at the aforementioned email link from The Equality Network as well as at an email advocacy website set up by Human Rights Campaign that may offer insights into composing your own letter or email.

If you don’t write a letter, send an email.  If you don’t send an email, consider making a phone call.  Legislation like Senate Bill 1965 is destroying dialogue and it will destroy lives.  It’s time for those of us who support community, restorative justice, and true equality to be in one voice in opposing hurtful and hate-filled legislation like SB 1965.  When we fail to stand in opposition to injustice and in solidarity with its victims, our inaction becomes our indictment.  I hope that you’ll join me in speaking against this bill that is bad for all people, and bad for Oklahoma.

* At the time of writing this post, no committee agenda had been set for the upcoming meeting of the House Judiciary Committee.

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Cross posted at the Xenia Institute.

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The following table includes all of the members of the House Judiciary Committee.  For your information, their party affiliation has been included in parenthesis following their names, but this is not actually part of their mailing addresses.  I’m also linking each representative to her/his page at the House website.

WASHINGTON - APRIL 12 (2007): Judy Shepard, mother of hate crime victim Matthew Shepard, wipes away tears during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

An Act relating to criminal investigations … which relates to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation; limiting disclosure of certain investigative information; prohibiting state employees from assisting a federal agency under certain circumstances.

What the summary fails to shed light on is the specific “circumstances” under which state employees are prohibited from disclosing information to or otherwise assisting federal law enforcement agencies. However, the blogosphere has rushed to the rescue with posts like these from the GLAA Forum, Unfinished Lives, and Metro Star News representing just a small sampling of web response. Comment has also come in from traditional media, with the editorial staff at the Tulsa World joining the conversation:

The bill apparently does not seek to repeal federal or state hate crimes protections in place that are based on race, national origin, religion or disability. But it excludes hate crimes perpetrated on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity, two categories added to a federal hate crimes law last fall.

It also sets a chilling precedent … that Oklahoma will only enforce certain federal laws and cooperate only with selected federal agencies.

This editorial prompted a response from Senator Russell himself, offering arguments about free speech in addition to his original claims of protecting religious freedoms. However, Edge Boston appears to have spelled it out more clearly than the Senator himself:

Russell also worried that The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which was signed into law by President Obama last year, might be used to prosecute Christians who speak out against gays because of their religious convictions. Though the measure includes guarantees designed to protect First Amendment freedoms, opponents have blasted the Act for creating a new class of “thought crimes,” and worried that the law would be used to suppress religious expression, including readings of anti-gay Biblical passages.

While one dissenting opinion argues that an error in this bill may opt Oklahoma out of federal intimidation statutes instead,* the intention behind Senator Russell’s bill is clear – to obstruct the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes against LGBTQI persons. If this intention becomes law, whether through passage of this bill or another, Oklahoma will effectively become the first don’t ask, don’t tell state. When it comes to hate crimes, Federal agencies need not ask, and state law enforcement better not tell.

*The Matthew Shepard Act and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is actually codified in 18 USC 249, not 18 USC 245 as presented in this bill.

This article cross posted at the Xenia Institute.

As I reflect on all of this, I realize that the Olympics have this general affect on me. In the midst of the rivalry and sportsmanship – the glory of nonviolent competition amongst nations on this global stage – I manage to forget about the world around me. At least temporarily I became freed of two-front war, Guantanamo detainees, the nuclear option and healthcare reform, “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and (thank God!) Glenn Beck. The narrative of Olympic competition creates a wonderful mythos that provides at least a temporary reprieve from the stresses and strains of reality. And unfortunately, the beauty of this mythos also helps to obscure the problematic nature of the games themselves.

Chinese tourists ski down a man-made snow slope, built next to the former Olympic stadium, also know as the Bird's Nest, in Beijing on January 31, 2010. UPI/Stephen Shaver

The discussions surrounding this most recent Winter Olympics at least began to broach what I feel is an important economic question regarding the games. The Wall Street Journal spelled it out in the title of an article covering the buildup to Vancouver: “Game Changer: Recession Recasts Olympic Spending.” But if the recession recasts Olympic spending, and presumably in a downward direction, what does this tell us about the high price tags of previous Olympic games? Obviously, the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008 ran away with the prize, boasting an estimated $42 billion (that’s no typo) investment in the games and related city infrastructure projects. You may even remember the decadently furnished new Olympic stadium, referred to as the “Bird’s Nest” because of its unique architectural design. Weighed down by a $9 million annual maintenance cost and a seemingly chronic disuse, the Chinese government has proposed converting portions of the complex into a luxury hotel or high end shopping center. An even more desperate situation has befallen Athens, host of the 2004 Summer Olympics, which now finds itself encumbered by massive national debt and economic failure:

Four years since the Athens Games, a Greek tragedy is taking place. Incredibly, many of the 22 Olympic venues now lie abandoned, as a sad and litter-strewn reminder of sport’s greatest festival … it has been reported in Greece that upward of $1 billion has been spent simply to maintain these ugly wrecks.

That is Athens’ legacy.

Rogers’ article raises an important question – the question of legacy. Or perhaps more importantly, the question of what legacy. When as recently as 2005, World Bank estimates showed that 135 million Chinese people lived on less than $1.25 a day, how do we justify laying $42 billion dollars at the altar of tourist-driven capitalism, a fickle deity that often benefits the wealthy at the expense of the poor? Even if the actual Olympics expenses were closer to the $4 billion dollars estimated for building venues and the operation of events,* the question of how moral judgments are made with regard to spending capital and allocating resources remains. In a paper for the Medical Journal of Australia, Mitton, Davies, and Donaldson raises this very question with regard to that country’s allocation of funds for the Sydney Olympics in 2000:

… we rarely hear a politician stating that war is being funded at the expense of Medicare, or that Olympic gold is being pursued with dollars that have been taken from education, or, perhaps of even greater concern, that current healthcare and Olympic pursuits take precedence over the fiscal health of future generations.

I’ll happily be the first to admit that I enjoy the spectacle of the games. Yet I’m left to wonder why nations can band together for quadrennial competitions amongst athletes while continuing to ignore the day-to-day struggle of the hungry. Given that there remain those who are medically uninsured in Australia, that over 135 million live in abject poverty in China, and that the debt ceiling continues to rise in Greece, perhaps it has become time to examine our policies and pursuits more carefully. With our track record human rights, poverty and hunger, war, disease, and disaster, I think it’s a discussion that is long overdue.

* This does not include $20.5 billion spent on environmental projects, which included the cleanup of smog pollution that would have hampered athletes’ breathing and performance. (See BBC News.)

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Cross posted at the Xenia Institute.

Attorney David Dow has made a career out of defending death row inmates in Texas — a state that boasts the highest number of death row executions nation-wide since 1976.

In the last twenty years, Dow has defended over 100 inmates sentenced to death. Many of his clients have died — most of them were guilty — but Dow says they should have been sentenced to life in prison instead of death at the hands of the state.

“The person that we’re executing is simply not the same person who committed the crime that landed that person on death row in the first place,” Dow tells Terry Gross.

Read the rest of the article and hear the audio of the interview here.

The SBOE is composed of 15 members who are elected from districts based on equal population representation.  Elections to the board are conducted on a partisan basis, and the recent meetings demonstrated just how detrimental this can be to the educational process.  Brian Thevenot of the Texas Tribune has provided excellent coverage of these meetings, and his description of the approval process is no exception:

Debates leading up to the board’s consideration of social studies standards often pitted typically conservative “pro-America” dogma against more typically liberal explorations of women and minority leaders. Yet in the nitty-gritty of at-times testy negotiations, a spirit of mostly polite horse-trading predominated, and most members seemed to get most of what they wanted. And though an eight-member majority block dominated by conservatives often controls the board, votes over specific amendments seldom broke so neatly.

Yet at the end of the day, the approved revisions still took what Terrence Stutz of the Dallas Morning News described as a “tilt to [the] right.” This was highlighted by the inclusion of Phyllis Schafly and the Eagle Forum, the National Rifle Association, the Moral Majority, and the Heritage Foundation to a list of people and groups that student must learn.  The amendment passed on a 7-6 vote, but the comments surrounding it prove just as enlightening:

Board member Don McLeroy, R-College Station, offered the amendment requiring coverage of “key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s.” McLeroy said he offered the proposal because the history standards were already “rife with leftist political periods and events – the populists, the progressives, the New Deal and the Great Society.”

If the current standards are “rife with leftist” ideals, then the approved changes and rhetoric of the board perhaps indicate a marked shift to the right, rather than just a tilt.  Derogatory remarks such as the following one reported following the meetings show not only a preference against multiculturalism, but an outright disregard for the ethnic diversity of our nation:

David Bradley, R-Beaumont Buna, also seemed upset by efforts of fellow board member Mary Helen Berlanga, D-Corpus Christi, to include the names of more Latinos in the standards. “If Ms. Berlanga, whose only criteria is skin color, had the votes, she would name us ‘the Hispanic Education Agency,’” he told one reporter.

The circumstances surrounding these meetings mark an unfortunate turn.  Instead of a focus on providing the best education for students, the curriculum process in the state of Texas has become the battle ground for the alleged “culture wars” that ultra conservative voices have been attempting to proclaim since the rise of the Moral Majority in the 1980’s.  And while I doubt that any protest I raise will ultimately be heard, I’ll close with these words from the SBOE History and Duties page on the Texas Education Agency website (emphasis mine):

As part of its efforts to provide the best possible education to public school students, the Board designates and mandates instruction in the knowledge and skills that are essential to a well-balanced curriculum.

I can only hope that the wisdom on which this board was founded will ultimately prevail.

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Some highlights from the Proceedings of the SBOE on Curriculum Approval:

• A proposal is debated to change the definition of good citizenship for first-graders to include “holding public officials to their word.”
• The deletion of Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers because she was a socialist.
• A requirement that eight grade students analyze ideas in Jefferson Davis’ inaugural address as president of the Confederacy.
• An attempt to change all mentions of U.S. “imperialism” to “expansionism.”
• Deletion of Margaret Sanger, a leading voice for contraception and relationship counseling, and founder of the organization that ultimately became Planned Parenthood.
• Removal of the words “from racial, ethnic, gender, and religious groups” from the existing standard: “Explain actions taken by people from racial, ethnic, gender, and religious groups to expand economic opportunities and political rights in American society.”

These highlights were gathered from live blog coverage of the meetings on January 14 and 15 provided by the Texas Freedom Network:

Live-Blogging the Social Studies Debate

Live-Blogging the Social Studies Debate II

Live-Blogging the Social Studies Debate III

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• Related link: Hijacking History
• Related link: Hijacking History, Part 2: The Texas Curriculum Hearings

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Cross posted at the Xenia Institute.

(Photo by Chris Hondros/Newsmakers) Content © 2008 Getty Images All rights reserved

In a previous blog, “Hijacking History,” I took on the subject of the Texas state curriculum for K-12 education (known as TEKS) and the implications of the proposed revisions to the curriculum that was to be presented to the State Board of Education (SBOE).  This new curriculum will not only determine what will be taught in Texas’ many public schools, but will also likely determine what is seen in new history textbooks throughout the nation.  (I explain this in more depth in my previous post.)

However, it is not just the revised curriculum that raises concern, but the highly pitched partisan battles that are taking place on the SBOE.  Various media outlets have covered the push by an ideologically conservative segment of the board to include standards that appear to better exemplify political and ideological positions than actual learning goals.  This January meeting was no exception, with the opening day hearings marked by controversy.  Brian Thevenot of the Texas Tribune describes the hearings:

As the State Board of Education grinded through testimony on Wednesday over its controversial social studies standards, much of the debate teetered on two basic fulcrums: teaching vs. indoctrination and patriotism vs. realism.

Scores of speakers, many affiliated with political organizations, ran complex issues of race and religion largely through those two filters for hours.

The importance of the curriculum decisions is evidenced by the sheer numbers of people arriving to testify before the SBOE.  Counts put the total near 130 speakers, far too many to be heard before the scheduled 6 pm adjournment.  Yet instead of extending the time for public comments, the board moved to adjourn for the evening anyway.  The Texas Freedom Network’s live blog reports on the events surrounding the close of the meeting:

6:13 – The board is getting angry comments from people who waited all day to testify. They’re demanding that the board continue hearing testimony. (We sympathize. After all, the board isn’t often asked to listen to their constituents on these issues.) A motion to extend the hearing fails on a tie vote. In the chaos, it’s hard to tell how all of the board members voted. But most of the “no” votes appear to have come from the board’s far-right faction…

6:18 – Now would-be testifiers are shouting in anger. More chaos. The chair, Gail Lowe, has to break a tie on a motion to adjourn the meeting. Could there be a clearer representation of the indifference some board members have for the concerns of their constituents? …

UPDATE: After adjournment, the state board’s five Democrats remained to continue listening to testimony from those who were unable to speak before the hearing ended. Many of the remaining testifiers were Latinos, some of whom had traveled from across the state to the hearing.

This crass indifference to the voices of many unheard witnesses is a testimony to the composition of the Texas SBOE.  Dominated by ultra-conservative ideologues who promote an ethnic insensitivity that is overtly racist, even if not overtly bigoted, a harrowingly nationalistic American exceptionalism that remains blinded to our history of injustice, inequity, and imperialism, and an unabashed Christian exclusivism, it should come as no surprise that they would have no compunction for those unfortunate enough to have been too far back in the witness line to speak before 6:00 pm.  While those members who continued to hear the testimony of the remaining witnesses are a credit to their elected office, the SBOE as a whole clearly turned its back on the democratic ideals its most hardened conservatives purport to defend.

Sadly, this is just another symptom of not only a failure of civility, but an utter lack of respect that appears to dominate our political landscape.  Sadder yet, this was only the first day of the meetings.

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The Texas Freedom Network offered live blog coverage of the events of the January 13 hearings that you can find at the following:

Live-Blogging the Social Studies Hearing

Live-Blogging the Social Studies Hearing II

Related link: Hijacking History

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Cross posted at the Xenia Institute.