Texas State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar’s online essay last weekend accusing (now) President-elect Barack Obama of sympathizing with terrorists apparently wasn’t her first trip down the extremism highway. Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Linda Campbell today noted that another online essay by the Richmond Republican in September was even more extreme.
In her earlier essay, Dunbar accused Obama of, among other things, promoting Marxism.
The liberal media knows about Obama’s communistic world view. In support of its endorsement the New York Times stated about Obama that “He has drawn in legions of new voters with powerful messages of hope and possibility and calls for shared sacrifice and social responsibility….” Does this language not disturb us as Americans? If it doesn’t it is simply because we don’t understand the role of civil government from a Biblical World View as our Founders did. “Shared sacrifice and social responsibility” smack of Marxist Communism and redistribution of wealth. This is a completely anti-American, anti-Constitutional view of the role of Federal Government, and Marxism is diametrically opposed to a Biblical World View. [Emphasis added.]
Good heavens. Now those of us who believe in “shared sacrifice and social responsibility” are Marxists? Remember: The state board on which Dunbar sits determines what more than 4.6 million Texas children learn in their public schools. Even worse, she is part of a faction of fellow extremists — including the chairman — that controls the state board. That faction is deciding what Texas kids learn in courses like science (evolution), health (sex education) and social studies (what it means to be an American and what this country stands for).
Texas, we have a problem. A big problem.
Cynthia,
You should heed Senator McCain’s final message of the campaign, as well as Governor Palin’s, when each called for everyone to join President-Elect Barack Obama and work with him to help America resolve its many problems.
The Founders had no “Biblical World View” particularly with regard to what is called “creationism”. The most significant of our Founders followed the example of the “Enlightenment” in which the “Biblical” view of politics was deliberately set aside, largely due to the devastating losses of the religious wars of the preceding three centuries, in particular the English Civil wars.
Our Constitution grew from the give and take between power centers of the past: the king, parliament, nobles, and the rising middle classes as affected by ethnic (Irish, Scot, English), religion (Catholic, Anglican, the Kirk, and Puritan) and social class (aristocrat, merchant, artisan, farmer, and the urban poor).
The concepts of redistribution of wealth in olden times meant your supporters got the estates of your enemies, including a redistribution of heads and other body parts. In the English Civil wars there were factions called “levelers” who wanted to eliminate the legal concept of aristocracy, and “diggers” who wanted to abolish private property.
Those who fled the UK and Europe for religious reasons came here not to practice religious freedom, but to practice religious oppression in the name of their own variant of religion. The Salem Witch trials were a part of that, and which eventually turned off the bulk of the Founders who insisted that no Biblical World View (or test) would be made official.
With regard to partisanship, I want to ‘put down the sword and pick up the plow-share’ as much as anyone. But the delusional rantings of Dunbar, McLeroy, Lowe, Bradley, et al and their minions show that people who care about public education in Texas will always have to keep guards posted to thwart sabotage from these impressively insecure religious fundamentalists. So let’s be very clear about one thing: the far right started the current vitriolic vituperation in public political discourse. Now, facing a strong political headwind, some of them call for an end to the rancor, while others, like Dunbar, continue to spout venom.
Concerning the already weary whine of “free market” capitalists: the most spectacular redistribution of wealth in our history occurred during the last 8 years of wandering in the wilderness, with the largest ever (and increasing) gap between middle class and wealthy americans. The reactionaries, while privatizing profit, apparently have no problem with redistributing the debt. And socialist, marxist Obama??? Holy cow, Dunbar… are you in a coma? Have you not noticed that your ‘god-loving’ decider-in-chief just socialized a trillion dollars of debt, lead saddlebags for your academically disadvantaged home-schoolers?
To people that want safe, effective neighborhood public schools: you will have to remain ever vigilant to free marketeers who want you to subsidize parochial schools with your tax dollars; ever vigilant to true believers who want to force your children to learn their religious doctrines instead of the results of research from scientists. You must remain vigilant to the subterfuge that scientists of every strip the world over are nothing more than a group of malcontents out to horsewhip faith. You must take interest in and watch for the creeping seizure of obscure boards like the State Board of Education, which wield so much below-the-radar power. Above all, you must commit time and energy, and money if you have any, to prevent the demolition of the wall between church and state. Find out when the SBOE meets, and come make your displeasure known. Then, next election, throw the bums out.
Coming from a line of English Roman Catholics that is more than a thousand years old, my family history is a testiment to the reality that the “Founders” clearly intended to place a dense structural boundary between church and state, to end theocracy, divine right monarchy, and the distruction it brought to England, other parts of Europe, and was beginning to transpose into the New World.
All simian societies, including all human societies, have power structures and stratification based on power, because of the need for redistribution starting with subsistance, and group protection. Without redistribution, what would be the value of being a social animal, division of labor, etc? This screed of radical individualism is completely self-distructive, completely narcissistic, and abrogates the basis of Ms Dunbar’s very socioeconomic existance, and power. She might as well propose a human ecology that is completely non-social, perhaps similar to most feline species ecologies. In such a world, she would have no power, because power is a social relationship. How could such a world exist with 6.75 billion people alive today? Redistribution is one of the core problems that all human governing organizations face, and it is at the core of why governments even exist. Ms Dunbar is obviously a part of that formal system of governance. This has nothing to do with Marx or communism, other than the fact that any and all social theorists have to deal with the pan-human universal of redistribution as a part of being a social being. The fact that Ms Dunbar can ignore this is the most powerful reason why she should not be sitting in judgement of the evolution of social beings. One of the core bases for her power is redistribution. Should we place IQ qualification restrictions on candidates for the SBOE, since this is so obvious as to be almost pervasively intuitive. This is exactly what happens when you confuse science and religion conceptually, and intentionally. Its pretty typical for radical narcissists to try to hide political reciprocity under the cover of religious reciprocity, which is exactly the distructive social force that the Founders were trying to minimize structurally in the original Constitution and the first ten amendments’ protections (aka “Bill of Rights”).
We need to consider the possibility that over three decades of failure in public education to even teach the general population some basic idea of what science is, and what it has to offer humanity, the “how”, not “why”, has resulted in this confusion about what the differences between science and religion actually are, and has resulted in the Dunbars of the world sitting on the SBOE, and institutionalizing that confusion. The conspicuously consumptive life style that I’m suspect Ms Dunbar attributes to her God is in direct competition with other human groups/nation-states, whose educational commitment to science, engineering, and technology is surpassing ours very rapidly. This is a process known as “shoot yourself in the foot”. Perhaps Ms Dunbar doesn’t care what kind of world all our grandkids live in, because she assumes that execption will place her grandkids in her God’s covenant, the chosen few who will survive Obamagedden?
I have some links about extremism on my blog under the category of “Authoritarianism”, if anyone wants to follow them. The authoritarian personality is really what is at the bottom of the religious right – notice that I didn’t preface ‘right’ with ‘Christian’!
Wow. I’m impressed with the commenters here. So much logic and reason, all in one place… Good for you all.
Help counter all forms of extermism on the Texas SBOE
educationfirstsboe10.org
Whomever the author “TFN” is (didnt have the courage to put your name on the blog?) has either never read Marx’s statements on captalism and socialism or is just being purposely disingenuous. Did he/she read Obama’s own words from his book that he was drawn to “Marxists”? Does Marx and Obama have anything in common when Marx famously popularizes the communist slogan “from each according to his ability to each according to his needs” then Obama takes more from the rich and gives to the poor….you know the “if you make over $250,000” thing? And now Obamas health care bill has passed which bolsters much much more of the same entitlement wlefare mentality and “TFN” says Dunbar is an “extremist”.
I would say that the “extremist” is the one who denies reality in order to pursue an ideological agenda at their own peril. That would be the author of this blog. Dunbar is SPOT ON.