One does not have to be a student of history to
understand the efficacy of Nazi Josef Goebbels’s propaganda tactic of
telling “a lie big enough and keep repeating it; people will eventually
come to believe it.” Of course, the Nazi’s big lie was that jews were
the greatest threat to Germany and it led, what may have been, good
Germans to turn on their neighbors and become complicit in a horrific
attempt to exterminate an entire people due to their religion. There is a
saying that those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat
it, and a large segment of Americans did learn from Nazi history are
deliberately repeating it to incite hatred toward an entire people due
to their religion.
Of course the Americans putting Goebbels’s
propaganda tactics into practice are Faux News, neo-conservatives, repugicans, and their religio-wingnut sycophants, and their big lie is
that the greatest threat to this nation is every person who adheres to
the muslim faith. There is no doubt the fundamentalist islamists in ISIL
are barbaric and a threat to muslims in the Middle East, but they do
not represent all muslims as evidenced by the muslim nations fighting to
destroy them. However, that fact is not a valid propaganda message for
the christian wingnuts and their neo-con war and fear-mongers whose lies
many Americans are beginning to believe as fact.
Michele Bachmann put Goebbels’s propaganda tactic to
work and said, “I don’t want to see car bombings and all of the havoc
and chaos coming to the United States that we see in Baghdad. Since we
have them coming into the United States, we’ll see a wave of car
bombings and bombings that occur here in the United States that would
begin the process of destabilization to bring them to the point of
defeating us here in the United States.”
Recently, in a lunatic fringe media outlet for evangelical
and pentecostal 'christians', charisma magazine, an avowed islamophobe,
Gary Cass, put out a call for genocide against muslims stating
categorically that “every true follower of mohammed wants to subjugate
and murder” non-muslims. It’s impossible for christians to live together
peacefully with them.” Cass then asks the faithful “How many more dead
bodies will have to pile up at home and abroad before we crush the
vicious seed of ishmael in jesus’ name?” Cass’s solution is not unlike
Hitler’s Nazis; “either force them all to get sterilized” or “kick them
out of America, but then he arrives at the final solution; “really
there’s only one solution that is biblical; overwhelming christian just
war.”
It is a sad fact of life, but the preponderance of
propaganda against muslims over the past thirteen years in general, and
the last few months in particular, is finally starting to have the
desired effect and is being manifest in, of all places, public schools.
The problem is not students, and certainly not school teachers, but
religio-wingnut parents watching Faux News and frequenting evangelical
websites, as well as school administrators terrified of 'christians' that
wield inordinate power over local school districts.
It is likely going on around the nation, and it is
certainly occurring in California, where over the past couple of weeks,
groups of parents, school board members, and administrators approached
and accosted history, mathematics, and science teachers over what they
claimed were inappropriate portrayals of Islam in the classrooms. The
group informed the history department first that they had heard enough
from Faux News, religious websites, and YouTube videos warning parents
that textbooks teachers are mandated to use are not revealing the true
intent of all muslims to “murder every christian man, woman, and child
in America.” The parents claimed that Common Core was not teaching
students that, as Michele Bachmann said, American muslims and ISIL
children sneaking across America’s southern borders were planting car
bombs to kill christians and conquer America.
The history teachers were predictably surprised they
were being assailed and reminded the parents and district
representatives that they had been using a nine year old
“district-chosen” textbook that pre-dated Common Core by several years.
They also reminded the group the textbooks were approved by the school
board. The group’s spokespersons, two evangelical parents replied, “But
that was before we saw Faux and YouTube warning us you all are making muslims look like they aren’t trying to murder us, especially us christians.” For the record, depending on the grade level, basic history
class curriculum includes an overview of the world’s major religions;
including christianity, judaism, hinduism, buddhism, and islam.
The group then moved on to the mathematics
department and warned math teachers to stop making muslims look
civilized by telling students that algebra was first devised in the
Middle East. It was the same story for the science department that made
the un-christian error of showing a portion of the Cosmos episode that
revealed some of the greatest scientific discoveries in the ancient
world originated in Iraq. The consensus was that if teachers had to
reference the Middle East at all, they could either herald the greatness
of dog’s chosen people the jews, or warn the students that muslims, all muslims, pose an existential threat to Americans, especially 'christian'
Americans.
It is noteworthy that one history teacher reminded
the “concerned group” that history textbooks included a brief synopsis
of the christian crusades and inquisitions, and it did not portray christianity in a good light. It did not have the effect the teacher
intended and elicited praise and encouragement to glorify America’s
current christian crusade against the muslims. One among the group said
they believe what they saw in a video that since America has been
fighting muslims since 9/11, children need know that “total victory
doesn’t mean forcing them to convert, it means killing them all” and “if
the crusades did their job we’d be safe today.”
Most Americans, whether they are religious
fundamentalists or not, likely have no idea of what islam is about, or
that it is an abrahamic religion like judaism and christianity. But due
to the preponderance of fear-mongering, outright lies, and hateful
propaganda from the likes of Faux News, repugican warmongers, and christian fundamentalists, they think all muslims are extremists in the
image of ISIL or al-Qaeda and “equally and irredeemably evil.” They also
are so ignorant of their own religion that they believe all “real christians” are good and righteous and that the horrors their faith
committed on humanity are wholly justified simply because America is christian and on dog’s side.
Subsequently, they believe the propaganda wingnut christians, warmongers, and fear-mongering media spews
incessantly and have now taken it on themselves to censor school
curriculum and warn school teachers to start portraying islam in the
same negative light they see daily on Faux News, evangelical websites,
and from repugican fear-mongers who studied Nazi history, learned the
lessons of successful propagandizing, and are making Goebbels proud.
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