Cross Posted from Daily Kos
Once upon a time, when I was a kid some 50+ years ago, the purpose of public schools was to educate the general populace and prepare them to contribute to the community that raised them. The School Board, among other things, chose the textbooks to be used in that endeavor. Yeah there were some hysterics about teaching sex ed, but we were trying to beat Russia to the moon — no creationism allowed in our science classes.
But in 1964 LBJ totally stomped the R/Libertarian candidate Goldwater. And the Kochs got to work. They started funding and running candidates at the bottom. The School Boards were first. By the time my children were in school in the late 1970s we were starting to have trouble with the kinds of “facts” in our textbooks. Creationism went from a joke to “creation science” showing up in our texts and lesson plans. And facts started to come in second to beliefs.
The Koch (and other) funded movement to take over our government moved next to city and county races, then state races, and finally to federal races. Over the years they pushed the Rs far into Libertarian territory — and that’s the group that won in 1994. And has control of Congress right now. So what do we do about this?
We do the same thing they did. We start at the bottom. We start at precinct level. We start with the school boards so children are taught critical thinking again. With the city and county officials. (Like the Detroit City Clerk. The incumbent didn’t recount 60,000 Detroit votes in November, 2016 — Michigan went R by 11,000 votes. You do the math.)
And right now, this month — and absentee voting has already begun — in Fairfax County, VA we can take a really good first step by electing Karen Keys-Gamarra to the School Board. Donate, get the word out, volunteer, help with GOTV — Let’s get it done.
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