Republicans and independents often complain of being an outcast political minority in the heavily Democratic Washington, D.C. However, one parent was unprepared for the homework assignment that his child brought home from McKinley Tech Middle School: asking students to draw comparisons between Adolf Hitler and George W. Bush.
No, this was not an art class comparing painting styles (here and here if you want to compare and contrast)
The students were told to fill in a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the two figures:
“Now that we have read about two men of power who abused their power in various ways, we will compare and contrast them and their actions. Please refer to your texts, ‘Fighting Hitler — A Holocaust Story’ and ‘Bush: Iraq War Justified Despite No WMD’ to compare and contrast former President George W. Bush and Hitler. We will use this in class tomorrow for an activity!”
The parent called to complain and was told that the assignment was part of a curriculum unit approved by the school system as part of a focus on both the Holocaust and the Iraq war.
A spokeswoman for D.C. Public Schools later said the two readings were among suggested curriculum the school system had previously approved but that the texts were not meant to be compared in the manner assigned by the teacher who “deeply regrets this mistake, and any suggestion to malign the presidency or make any comparison in this egregious way.” “Suggestion [of] . . . any comparison in this egregious way”? A bit more than a suggestion, I would think. It is like comparing Obama and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and has a certain loaded quality. It is like saying “Ebola has killed thousands of people. Bush killed thousands of people. Compare and contrast.” This is bit misleading without a tad more information.
What is interesting is that the assignment has the same quality as a push poll designed to influence or voters under the guise of conducting a poll. It has the same impact as the neutral poll used recently against a Democratic candidate when people were asked “What would you think of Elizabeth Colbert Busch if I told you she had had an abortion?”
How is this for the next Venn diagram: “Propaganda is used to to give biased or misleading information from a particular political point of view. Your last assignment sought to compare a recent president to a genocidal murdering fanatic that killed millions. Compare and contrast.”
Source: Washington Times
Compare Obama to Nixon would be an assignment I would give, and if JT were a parent he would not object!
Nick – as I have said before I might do this assgn with honors high schoolers, seniors. For middle school you could destroy Obama by using a Venn diagram comparing him to George Washington. However, it would be hard for parents to fight the assignment.
Karen, If you watch X Files you remember the 3 Lone Gunman dudes. We got more than 3 here. God bless them.
I oppose a class assignment comparing Bush to Hitler for the same reason that I would oppose a similar assignment comparing Obama to Stalin.
The public education system MUST remain politically neutral. Teachers and staff need to leave their politics at the door. Period. It is not the place to indoctrinate kids into any party. Doing so is grossly unfair to the taxpayers that fund the schools.
Here is an LA Times review of Family of Secrets. What stood out at me was, “By Baker’s reckoning, there seem to have been about as many people involved in the plot as there were on Omaha Beach. With that many people involved in the conspiracy, it’s a miracle it remained a secret long enough for Baker to “uncover” it. The elder President Bush is a public figure and, therefore, practically libel-proof. But using the tissue of innuendo, illogical inference, circumstance and guilt by tenuous association — as Baker does in this book — to indict rhetorically anyone, let alone a former chief executive, of an infamous murder is a reprehensible calumny.”
Sounds like just another example of paranoid literature, right up there with “we didn’t really land on the moon.”
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/07/entertainment/et-rutten7
Karen – if you cannot get the LATimes to puff your book, who is going to support it?
Paul dear, he’s alive and well in the fevered minds of some commenters here. Are you humorously challenged?
annie – there is nothing humorous in the death of John Birch.
http://youtu.be/eCxi5VOYKOY
John Birch is alive and well!
Annie – John Birch died in 1945, killed by Chinese Communists. Are you as historically challenged as another of our bloggers?
OK. Have it your way. You didn’t present that Chaplin video.
You stand up. You stand down.
You’re gonna be my hero.
You take and promote your indoctrination classes from an exiled and alleged pedophile (wanton lust, indulgence and immorality are great for the wealthy but problematic when promoting them to people of modest means).
You live in a dream world. Nirvana. Everything’s perrrrrrrrfect.
All love. No competition. Blue skies, beautiful meadows and flowers all year long.
All you need is love.
And a big dose of Other People’s Money, right?
You should try out some Whittaker Chambers – Witness – against Alger Hiss, Roosevelt’s resident communist. Chambers gives an excellent perspective on freedom vs. communism.
I’m just sayin’.
Max, “The inmates have taken over the asylum!” o_O
John,
So may uses of the word “You”.
Yet you do not know “Me”.
Max 1, “Charlie Chaplin as Hitler, speaks!”
You assume the perspective of the content.
You are a dreamer living in a dream world.
You drift in mysticism; you are a mystic of the ether.
Your thinking is the dream of communism…that is not a compliment.
Collectivism was found to be unviable after 70 years of human experiments.
America introduced freedom and self-reliance without bias, “affirmative action.”
America threw off the yolk of the monarchy.
There were plenty of NGO churches undertaking charity.
The dreams of you collectivists have lead to the imposition of the yolk of slavery,
the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
You are a religious zealot who forces his religious beliefs on others.
You are dreamer living in a dream world.
Fools are the customers of dream peddlers.
All men are created equal, after creation, their merits will inform their status.
The inmates have taken over the asylum.
That any teacher would compare Hitler with any American President is disgraceful. We have the freedom to disagree with any President. Sad to see such low level of language. Disagreeing with Bush using words like “stupid” shows me the level of the writer. I disagree with Obama vehemently, but I would never call him stupid.
AY, there had been no request until JT’s. I had no problems complying once I became aware of the issue.
My my… One has a problem with the request if the owner of the blog being repeated…
Apparently just a thorn…
Well it WAS a nice civil discussion of the civility rules, was nice while it lasted. Here I bow out.
Annie,
I see you still have difficulty taking any responsibility for outing yourself. Had you made any attempt to indicate your desire to remain anonymous I would have certainly respected it; regardless of the nature of the tweet. I respected JT for asking me if I objected to not use your other name. It’s unfortunate he has to keep cleaning up the messes created by irresponsible contributors.
If a poster says they do not want their identity disclosed it’s the policy of the owner of this blog that it may not be disclosed even if previously disclosed. As Paul and Nick about the scolding they got from the professor!
Did someone die and leave AY in charge?
You again speak without knowing the facts. Not surprising your posts are not credible. Tsk
Olly, no matter what occurs off this blog, we don’t have the right to bring it here, that is also a civility rule. If you know my real name by any method, you do not have permission by JT or myself to use it here in this blog’s comment sections.
annie – so, annie is not your real name?
None of your business.:)