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Sunday, June 06, 2010

That damned Past

What's Mallard raving about today?

D-Day, Nazis, Adolph Hitler, Teenagers

Ever think the reason teens don't know who Hitler is can be traced to the fact that right-wing idiots tell them President Obama is Hitler?

If you were really interested in not repeating the past, you'd speak up against people who trivialize the true horror of what the Nazis did by invoking them for all manner of minor ideological differences.

That is a far greater danger than a bunch of 17 year-olds who've been let down by the Education System, you want to de-fund.

16 comments:

Tog said...

Oh, teh ironing is delicious.

Also, Mallard is engaging in Fantasy History: This "we" of which he's thinking were perfectly willing to let Hitler overrun Europe. Although many Americans were horrified and infuriated by those Nazi atrocities of which they learned, they were shouted down by free-market worshippers and isolationists who were only to delighted to ignore or do business with Nazi Germany. "We" didn't get involved until "we" ourselves were attacked and could no longer ignore the Axis.

That's not "blaming America first," that's just fact.

Further, the "we" that saved Europe (and the rest of the world) from the Axis was a collection of countries' forces, including dirty Commie rats from the Soviet Union, and French Resistance fighters, whose incredible sacrifice in Operation Dynamo has been forgotten by pigs who still giggle about Groundkeeper Willies' "cheese-eatin' surrender-monkeys" line.

So screw your willfully ignorant ass, Batshit. No neoconservative has any business lecturing anyone else about the dangers of repeating history.

exanonymous said...

What the asterisk should actually say:
http://www.commoncore.org/_docs/CCreport_stillatrisk.pdf

(2 minutes with Google, mainly delayed by sorting out the original 1987 from the 2008 update.)

Anyways, Mallard's failings to provide clear sources aside, the researcher decries "no child left behind" and standardized tests (liberals think these cause problems too). He also points out the gaps that exist between those with college educated parents and those without (liberals would like all people to be able to obtain college educations.) He also notes that those who participate in musical groups, attend plays, and visit museums score higher (again, liberals think this is important to education, more so than football.)

The author recommends much heavier focus on the liberal arts (liberals agree again here and it should also be noted that liberals generally do not mock liberal arts majors.) He also notes that there is no lack of will on the part of the teachers (destroying the "teachers suck" thesis), but rather it seems to be a problem in recruiting and training on the part of the schools and the emphasis on basic skills.

Eno said...

"Saving Europe from the Nazis." Hm, is this one of those changes that Texas wanted to slip into their textbooks?

See, can you really blame us Europeans for not being able to forget the stereotype of the jingoistic, selfish, blowhard American when we have people like Tinsley always feeling the need to interject their supposed superiority to all other countries when they should just supply the facts.

I personally find it really creepy that Americans, at least on the political right, insist on drumming it into their children from an early age how wonderful their country is and how much better it is than everywhere else. Right-wingers love to talk about how public schools are brainwashing their kids, but teaching your child to never question how your country works and claim that it's perfect and doesn't need any change whatsoever? That's the very definition of indoctrination right there.

Bill the Splut said...

...And a majority of Republicans still believe that we found WMDs in Iraq, and that Saddam was behind 9/11. And their leaders hope and pray that they always will.

WV: factiss; a right wing fact, which bears as much relation to a true fact as truthiness does to truth

Unknown said...

I was more bothered by the insinuation that schools are pumping out little Hitlers.

dlauthor said...

This screed is from the only major-paper cartoonist who still routinely draws hooknosed Jewish caricatures, right?

Ducky is Right said...

Is US foreign policy set by 17 year olds? I could be wrong, but I don't think it is.

News flash, Ducks: 1/3 of your average group of people are fucking morons. Which is why we don't let them make decisions.

Quit fucking whining about kids today, you hack.

Frank Stone said...

Your hopes and prayers are too little, too late, ducky. We've already experienced a period in which we repeated the past because we didn't remember it; it was called the Bush-Cheney administration.

WV: Chilicha: The new chili-cheese tostada from Taco Bell.

Tog said...

Off-topic but hilarious: Gay-Marriage Advocate Sets Herself Up To Quickly Become Fourth Ex-Wife Of Neoconservative "Family Values" Talking-Head-Slash-Drug-Addict

Talk about an odd couple: conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh and outspoken gay-marriage advocate Elton John.

But, according to a News Corporation (which owns Fox News) wire report, the Rocket Man, 63, serenaded the 400 guests Saturday night to celebrate the marriage of Limbaugh, 59, to Kathryn Rogers, 33, in the Ponce de Leon ballroom of Florida's fabled Breakers hotel in Palm Beach. Sir Elton's fee: $1 million, the report notes.

Amid dozens of giant bouquets of white roses, reports the Palm Beach Post, guests at the wedding included former Bush adviser Karl Rove; actor-politician Fred Thompson; former Kansas City Royals slugger George Brett; Fox News commentator Sean Hannity; former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft; former Clinton adviser James Carville and his wife, GOP analyst Mary Matalin; and golfer Tom Watson, among others.

The couple met six years ago, while she was running a charity golf tournament and Limbaugh was in the process of divorcing for the third time.

Rogers is a direct descendant of President John Adams, and her father attended the U.S. Naval Academy with the future Arizona Senator (and 2008 Republican Presidential candidate) John McCain, reports NewsCore.

The wire service also quotes the new bride as saying of the couple's 26-year age gap: "I'm sometimes not able to relate to the average person my age."


I can't make this shit up. But if you think that's what I'm doing, the article's here at People.com. Headline's all mine though.

Hey, which one's the bigger threat to "traditional marriage?"

Tog said...

OOPHS, Elton John's the gay-marriage advocate, not Future Ex No. 4. I was so astounded by the rest of the article I shouldn't have skimmed the first paragraph. Rest of it stands, though.

MartyRotten said...

http://comics.com/peanuts/

At the above link is a tasteful D Day tribute drawn by a talented cartoonist who doesn't stoop to mindless jingoism.

Just thought you'd enjoy the contrast.

exanonymous said...

My teacher went so far as to show this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fX-G5EYJPc

The infamous Disney contribution:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU1LHeim_hA

And a last one for context:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRcBt904OJ0
Communists versus the Fascists in cartoon form. It would be especially enlightening for the morons who continually slur them into the same.

Teachers do no favors if they teach war in terms of blind jingoism. It's just spewing the propaganda and indoctrinating children more than any song about Obama.

Kip W said...

I was hoping we'd go from "...don't know who Adolf Hitler was*" to (*He was a Nazi!). Or, given the usual scholarship here, maybe (*He was a Commie-liberal Nazi!) or even (*He was a tree-hugging non-smoker who put the "Aryan" in "Vegetarian"), though the vegetarian thing is something of an overstatement.

But no. Tin passes up another opportunity. When exactly did he give up trying, anyway?

rewinn said...

George W Bush explicitly stated his belief that war made America strong.

He explicitly stated that he wanted a foreign war to build his political capital for reversing FDR's reform.

He explicitly stated that he ordered torturing helpless prisoners and would do so again if given the chance.

This must be another one of Mallard's anti-neocon comics, right?

Rootbeer said...

THRILL as an idiot duck in a tweed jacket HOLDS A RECTANGULAR THING and THINKS!

A weekday strip isn't big enough to HOLD ALL THIS ACTION!!!

Kip W said...

Elton's actually more of a Civil Union kind of guy. He doesn't know how weak those are over here. Or else the pile of money he sits on puts him so far above it all he doesn't care any more.

wv- pyrro: The little leprechaun that tells Ralphie Wiggum to burn things.