Texas Freedom Network and the fight against far-right efforts to rewrite history in Texas public school classrooms were featured on three national radio programs the last few days. First, TFN President Kathy Miller was a guest on the Rev. Welton Gaddy’s State of Belief radio program. Check out the full interview here.
Kathy was also a guest on “To the Point,” a nationally broadcast program of NPR radio station KCRW in Los Angeles. The program features Texas State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar getting schooled by Kathy and the program’s other guests, Susan Jacoby of the Center for Inquiry-New York City and Randall Balmer, professor of American religious history at Columbia’s Barnard College. Listen to the archived broadcast here.
Ryan Valentine, TFN’s deputy director, was a guest Friday night on Alan Colmes’ national radio program. State Board of Education member Don McLeroy apparently backed out of joining the program after finding out a TFN representative would participate. A podcast of Colmes’ show is available here.
I listened to the KCRW Los Angeles broadcast. Here are just a few of my opinions:
1) Cynthia Dunbar obfuscates by trying to express any opinion she has in legal language, even when that legal language is not really appropriate to the subject at hand. It’s like taking your kids to Baskin Robbins to choose which ice-cream to order and talking about the differences in jurisdiction between vanilla and strawberry. In the end, it sounded like authentic Religious Right gibberish trying to find its way out of a cloud. Such gibberish might work on the high school dropout crowd down at the Separate Independent Fundamental Baptist Church, but intelligent people over at the First United Methodist Church can see right through it, as can other intelligent people in the society at large. Ms. Jacoby and Brother Balmer (sometimes editor at “Christianity Today” magazine) filleted her, salted her, and laid her out to dry over a smoky fire. Well, it looked that way to me.
2) Being a big fan of TFN, I was a little disappointed with Kathy Miller’s role in the discussion. It sounded as if she was not feeling well or something. Ms. Jacoby and Brother Balmer went straight to the heart of the issue and basically ripped Ms. Dunbar’s perspective to shreds, and I could sense that it was causing her to become agitated and a little bit unglued.
So, to Kathy Miller (with much love and respect), the jugular is in the neck. In a debate, go to it immediately and rip a 6-inch vertical gash in the center of it on the first bite and never let up until the fight is over. As W. Averell Harriman said during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, “…the Soviet understands only one language—ACTION. Respects only one word—FORCE.” It is pretty much the same with Christian Neo-Fundamentalists on the Religious Right. Check it out in the movie trailer for Thirteen Days:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSA7Evcy7iE
While listening to the NPR broadcast, especially during Kathy’s closing arguments, I was repeatedly yelling “..for instance, the far-right’s silencing of the people who are experts, and instead bring in fellow theocratic ideologues such as DAVID BARTON!”
Yes, I know that brings certain libel and defamation threats to the fore, but I really, really want that scumbag’s lies to be known by everyone on the planet. I would hope that if more people knew how craven and manipulative Mr. Barton really is, they would then see why what Dunbar and McLeroy are really doing is attempting history revision-something straight out of “1984”.