Posted on 04/01/2017 7:26:14 PM PDT by EinNYC
Is President Trump a fascist?
I think that's a bit of a stretch, myself. But I've also heard some compelling arguments linking Trump's attacks on immigrants and judges to the rhetoric used by fascists, including Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
I also think that our schoolchildren should hear these arguments, so they can judge the matter for themselves. And that's what makes me different from many people around the country, who simply don't trust our teachers enough to let them debate Donald Trump in their classrooms.
Consider Saratoga Springs, New York, where a teacher recently conducted a lesson in his 10th-grade history class comparing Trump to fascists. The lesson featured a cartoon depicting Trump as "Mussolini with hair" and also a list of the "early warnings signs of fascism," including "obsession with national security" and "rampant sexism."
That caught the attention of two mothers in "Conservative Chicks," a local political group, who went on Fox and Friends last month to condemn the lesson. Then the whole episode went crazy viral on right-wing websites, which tagged it as yet another example of liberal teachers pressing their anti-Trump agenda on young minds.
Significantly, though, none of the critics offered any evidence that the teacher in question had actually done that. Instead, the teacher's own question — is Trump a fascist? — was taken as a sign of indoctrination, in and of itself.
"To equate our president with the most abhorrent men in history past is not right," one angry parent told the Saratoga Springs school board, at a boisterous meeting last Thursday. "It's not good, and most of all, it's not true."
But as school officials confirmed, the teacher did not "equate" Trump with fascists; rather, he inquired whether Trump is a fascist. To the conservative spin machine, of course, that's one and the same. Why would you even ask the question, unless you're trying to sway kids against the President?
To be sure, some teachers have sought to do precisely that. Last February, for example, Staten Island middle school teacher Adria Zawatsky gave out a fill-in-the-blank homework exercise to help students learn new vocabulary words. "President Trump speaks in a very superior and _____ manner insulting many people," one question said. "He needs to be more _____ so that the American people respect and admire him."
The correct answers were "haughty" and "humble." But there was nothing humble about Zawatsky, who haughtily defended the question when a parent denounced it.
"I do not believe I was expressing a political view at all on my vocabulary sheet," Zawatsky told the parent. "My reference to President Trump was about his personality traits rather than his ability as a president."
Please. For as long as we have elected presidents, we have debated their personalities. When it comes to politics, the personal is political.
And it's all over the airwaves, as Zawatsky also noted in her email to the complaining parent. "The media is nonstop on very similar references," she wrote. "This is considered freedom of speech and I feel I have the same right as they do."
Actually, she doesn't. Part of being a professional is limiting your own speech, in accord with the best interests of the people in your charge. A good physician doesn't discuss her patient's health problems on a crowded bus; a good lawyer won't divulge her client's strategy to the opposing counsel.
And a good teacher won't flame about politics like our rough-and-tumble national media, where talking heads shout past each other in a 24-hour circus of ridicule and invective. Our teachers need to model a different — and better — kind of civic exchange: informed, tolerant, and mutually respectful.
That doesn't mean they have to remain completely neutral, as some school critics have argued. Teachers are political beings, too, and there may be circumstances where it's appropriate for them to reveal an opinion. But they also have to make it clear that their students aren't required to agree with them. Otherwise, they're not educators anymore; they're propagandists.
And every time a teacher propagandizes her students, she makes it harder for other teachers to educate them. As we saw in Saratoga Springs, many citizens simply don't trust teachers to know the difference between instruction and indoctrination. By asking whether President Trump was a fascist, one citizen told the school board, its teacher had expressed "total disrespect for the highest office in this country."
No, he didn't. He instead reflected the highest values of our democracy, which requires citizens who possess the knowledge and skill to debate complicated questions. Teachers are the public servants who are charged with cultivating an informed public. The question is whether the rest of us will let them do it.
School children haven’t the education of the background to “judge for themselves” if what they are being inculcated and indoctrinated by their teachers has any validity in reality or not. This is pure BS on this writer’s part, obfuscating the truth and attempting to hide the quisling nature of what is being done in the name of public education by fellow traveler socialists in the schools.
>>>Our Kindergarten teacher stepped-in to stop the fight and asked me how I knew about Communists. I replied, “they’re democrats.”<<<
Don’t take this the wrong way, but after reading your Post I wish we were related. You would have been a great Sister. LOL
I agree that you were right then and you’re right now.
The Democrat Thug Party is indeed the party that practices fascism through its intolerance of speech and extreme regulatory agendas.
Bill & Hillary might NOT be serial killers, but “I also think that our schoolchildren should hear these arguments, so they can judge the matter for themselves.”
Barack Obama might NOT be an LBGTQ Muslim sleeper agent, But “I also think that our schoolchildren should hear these arguments, so they can judge the matter for themselves.”
The NEA and other Teacher’s Unions might NOT be self-serving racketeering organizations, but “I also think that our schoolchildren should hear these arguments, so they can judge the matter for themselves. “
did they ask the students why Obama supported Islamic Terrorism?
Illegal aliens are not ‘immigrants.’ Judicial activists who rule on political whim rather than the rule of law are not ‘judges.’
Trump is no fascist.
I would even like to see every teacher have to reapply for their jobs every year, with all their previous year's statements, papers, and grading decisions open for the taxpaying parents to review.
If the majority of parents don't agree with the teacher, they can go away. That is democracy in action.
Obama may not be a homosexual, but teachers should have the freedom to ask students the question
The 'teacher' should also inquire if Bill Clinton was a rapist... or if Obama was a communist...
Michele Obama may not be a man, but teachers should have the freedom to ask students the question
Politicized government school workers who indoctrinate children rather than educate them are not teachers.
These people are morons . They have completely minimized the true meaning of fascism , just as they have done with racism . Complete disrespect for the millions of souls that have suffered under true fascism . Anyone “instructor” the equates Trump and fascism should be laughed at , not encouraged
so this would be an equally valid question:
Is 0bama a pole smoking faggot?
Is Hillary a Mao suit communist traitor?
Is Bill Clinton a rapist?
You can count me in on that.
Sounds like California.
Hmmm. I don’t remember any teachers leading discussions about whether or not Obama was a socialist.
Hmmm. I don’t remember any teachers leading discussions about whether or not Obama was a socialist.
And if a teacher had asked. “Is Obama a Communist?” Would this writer take such a tolerant stance? I doubt it.
How come the MSM never asked Hillary or Obama to refute the endorsement of Communist Party USA?
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