The U.S. House just passed the Crucial Communism Teaching Act, a bill that claims to educate students on the 'dangers of communism' but is rooted in misinformation and fear-mongering. #politics #Re...
  • 51dz31 [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    61·
    8 days ago

    In my country the school’s history book cites Solzhenitsyn’s estimate of 66 million dead in the gulag. We also had to learn by heart the theories of Arendt and Orwell.

    All the books that we were required to read said that “Revolution bad, reform good” or “The world is literally worse after the revolution”, it’s a joke

    • RuthlessCriticism [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      28·
      8 days ago

      It is amazing how the soviet archives being opened and completely disproving all this propaganda did literally nothing to stop them. There was essentially not a single propagandist who actually cared about the truth, kind of incredible.

      • TheDrink [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        27·
        8 days ago

        Not just the archives either. In the 80s there were people who believed that millions of political prisoners would be released by Gorbachev which obviously never happened because they didn’t exist. It’s kinda like people believing that there are still Vietnam War POWs after all this time.

    • vegeta1 [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      19·
      8 days ago

      That the guy who said the German army could have liberated the Soviet Union from Communism but Hitler was stupid and did not use this weapon?

  • vegeta1 [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    44·
    8 days ago

    Lot of dems voted yea on it. I guess this is what obama meant by working with repubs and eschewing identity politics. Does he and his fellow dems know a decent amount of repubs call em communist or such all the ti… Oh fuck it why do I ask questions like I don’t already know these are irredeemable pieces of shit

  • BGDelirium [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    31·
    8 days ago

    I grew up in California in a big suburb and then a big city. Communism wasn’t even mentioned and I was a high-falutin smart boy who took AP US History and US Government Honors

    Feel like these dummies are shooting themselves in the foot with the Barbara Streisand Effect.

    “Never interrupt your enemies when they are making mistakes.”

  • peppersky [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    25·
    8 days ago

    public education in the capitalist west has never been anything else other than a means of indoctrination. that they feel the need to pass something like this now just means that they feel they are losing control over the narrative.

    • Dirt_Possum [any, undecided]@hexbear.netEnglish
      17·
      8 days ago

      I want to agree with you, but I can’t shake the feeling that’s just cope. They never lost control over their narrative around eeevil communism. Just walk around and ask anyone on the street what communism even is. Look at how many even supposed radical leftists will still call anyone who knows a bit about history and geopolitics a “tankie.” They are losing the narrative on things like “actually Israel is defending itself” when there’s constant and endless videos of genocide happening in all its gory reality for anyone to see. It’s good that at least that they can’t completely control the narrative on, and it might be part of the reasoning behind this bill. But lying about the visible genocide in Gaza is a bit different than lying about history that can’t be seen as videos on social media and lying about geopolitics that are more complicated than images of murdered children. We’re in a new cold war that is only going to ramp up and this is the ideological conditioning they’ll be installing in the young population to help ensure they’ll be on board. As we know, propaganda works. You think it’s frustrating trying to reason with libs right now about the Uyghur “genocide,” the uphill battle of debunking those brainworms? Wait until that shit is basic curriculum and as common knowledge as “Stalin was a murderous dictator” is now.

      public education in the capitalist west has never been anything else other than a means of indoctrination.

      This is true, but that doesn’t mean it can’t get worse or that it can’t get modernized.

  • CleverOleg [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    17·
    8 days ago

    This bill sucks but it’s not correct to say “all students must be taught communism is evil”. The federal government can’t mandate that anything is taught or not taught, that’s 100% at the state and local level. For better or worse that’s how education works in the US. If they really want something the feds could threat to withhold funding unless X is taught but that is not in this bill. This bill directs that materials be made available (made by the Victims of Communism Memorial Fund) that talk about “the evil of communism” but nothing on the school level is mandated.

    Of course it’s a bad bill but we also shouldn’t exaggerate what’s in it.

  • invalidusernamelol [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    16·
    8 days ago

    118th CONGRESS

    2d Session

    H. R. 5349

    AN ACT To develop and disseminate a civic education curriculum and oral history resources regarding certain political ideologies, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

    SECTION 1. Short title.

    This Act may be cited as the “Crucial Communism Teaching Act”.

    SEC. 2. Purposes.

    The purposes of this Act are the following:

    (1) To help families, civic institutions, local communities, local educational agencies, high schools, and State educational agencies to prepare high school students to be civically responsible and knowledgeable adults.

    (2) To ensure that high school students in the United States—

    (A) learn that communism has led to the deaths of over 100,000,000 victims worldwide;

    (B) understand the dangers of communism and similar political ideologies; and

    © understand that 1,500,000,000 people still suffer under communism.

    SEC. 3. Development and dissemination of civic education curriculum and oral history resources.

    The independent entity created under section 905(b)(1)(B) of the FRIENDSHIP Act (40 U.S.C. 8903 note; 107 Stat. 2331 note), also known as the “Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation”, shall—

    (1) develop a civic education curriculum for high school students that—

    (A) includes a comparative discussion of certain political ideologies, including communism and totalitarianism, that conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy that are essential to the founding of the United States;

    (B) is updated periodically to ensure the curriculum includes both past and present communist and totalitarian regimes, with a focus on—

    (i) ongoing human rights abuses by such regimes, such as the treatment of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) by the People’s Republic of China; and

    (ii) aggression by such regimes against democratic nations and democracy, such as actions taken by the People’s Republic of China to deter pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and the increasingly aggressive posture by the People’s Republic of China toward Taiwan, a democratic friend of the United States.

    © is accurate, relevant, and accessible, so as to promote the understanding of such political ideologies; and

    (D) is compatible with a variety of courses, including social studies, government, history, and economics classes;

    (2) develop oral history resources that may be used alongside the curriculum described in paragraph (1) and that include personal stories, titled “Portraits in Patriotism”, from diverse individuals who—

    (A) demonstrate civic-minded qualities;

    (B) are victims of the political ideologies described in paragraph (1)(A); and

    © are able to compare the political ideologies described in paragraph (1)(A) with the political ideology of the United States; and

    (3) engage with State and local educational leaders to assist high schools in using the curriculum described in paragraph (1) and the resources described in paragraph (2).

    SEC. 4. Definitions.

    The terms in section 8101 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 7801) shall apply to this Act.

    Passed the House of Representatives December 6, 2024.

    • invalidusernamelol [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      15·
      8 days ago

      This is such an incredibly poorly written bill

      This whole thing is basically just granting Zenz and the VOC foundation access to schools to write official curriculum at a federal level.

      Honestly with how ham fisted this shit is, most kids will galvanize against this shit. It’ll be really obvious when the regular propaganda lesson ends and the super propaganda lesson starts because the teacher will have to make it clear that Congress has told them the have to teach this stuff.

  • NuraShiny [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    14·
    8 days ago

    Imagine some sports teacher educating the children on this one in a completely sincere and effective manner…yea, nothing could go wrong there!

    Like, don’t get me wrong, school does indoctrinate people, but drawing direct attention to socialism/communism as bad will only serve to make kids interested in it.

  • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    13·
    8 days ago

    They’re getting desperate. It was a lot better when “communism sucks” was just something that permeated through cultural osmosis. But now, you’re going to get contrarian kids who become communists just to stick it to their teachers. Because there’s nothing teens respect more than their high school teachers.