Help us stop Religious Fascism from Ruling Kansas Schools

[patrice]

Received this a bit ago from a friend. My response follows. Please consider helping us.

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I don't know if you follow events in the Olathe School District or not, but there are a number of Moderate voters FUMING about recent events. Conservative board members Mike Poland & Jim Churchman (both Extremists) attempted to have a classic novel by John Steinbeck removed from the 9th grade curriculum in ALL Olathe Schools. This book - 'Of Mice and Men', is a classic novel that has been studied by virtually everyone in the country for the past 45 years. It has won Numerous awards! A "Conservative" parent (who made Numerous contributions to Phill Kline's campaigns) requested that since she did not want 'her child' to read the book ALL Olathe students should be deprived of the right to share this novel as part of their education.

I am actively involved with a moderate grass-roots group of Public Education Supporters who are looking for ways to protect our schools from power-hungry elitists. Please take a look at our website, take a look at our list of supporters.

Olathe Schools First - Supporters http://www.olatheschoolsfirst.org/contact.html


Thanks for supporting Our Public Schools.

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My reply:

Those parents who object to John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men do not have to let their children read it. Why, then, do they **really** wish to impose their opinions on others?

It is a well known fact, based on research in psychology, that cognitive development requires challenge, if “we” sanitize the curricula of our schools with only uniform “values” determined by an elite and power-hungry few, the children of this country will become even less capable of critical thinking than they are now. Similar to physical in-breeding, this will result in intellectual and ethical weaklings, incapable of figuring out how to support, in their own behaviors, even those few values that they were exposed to. One need only review the works of Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo to see that this is true. At this time of the highest risks to the future of our land, we must prevent this from happening.

I support Our Public Schools and I accept my responsibility to make others aware of this situation.

[hfojvt]

1. I still wonder why Lewis Mumford, I think it was Mumford

wrote this:
"A world in which violence becomes normalised as part of the daily routine. The popular mind becomes softly inured to human degeneracy. 'Tobacco Road' and 'Of Mice and Men' become popular dramas without exciting the faintest degree of public protest - except in traditional clerical circles - over the defilement which they spread."

Mumford always seemed to me to be a keen intellect, which is why I kept that quote as he was bashing something I had considered a classic, or at least a work by a seminal author. Yet Mumford claims that 'Of Mice and Men' spreads 'defilement'. I would have liked to have him explain more clearly how that worked, and what he meant.