Wasted Opportunities

 

While I have posted now a few times on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's campaign to keep people in abysmal ignorance. there always seems to be something more to say on the topic. My friend Gary alerted me to a new article in The Guardian about the fervent Floridian's campaign to lay waste to young minds, keep them in profound ignorance about American history, and feed red meat to his acolytes.

Last year he signed the Don’t Say Gay bill, a nasty little law that bans classroom discussion of sexuality or gender identity issues – effectively forcing children and teachers alike to stay silent about their families and lives, under the threat of lawsuits. 

Since then, the Florida governor has repeated the playbook in increasingly ambitious fashion. Last April, DeSantis signed the exhaustingly titled “Stop Woke Act,” which restricts lessons on racial inequality in public schools. The bill prohibits the teaching of material that could cause a student to “feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress,” due to US racial history ...

Indeed, DeSantis seems intent on obstructing anything that might foster greater awareness and critical thinking.

In mid-January, DeSantis’ Department of Education issued new guidance to educators, saying that all books that have not been approved by a state compliance censor – euphemistically termed a “school media specialist” – should be concealed or removed from classrooms. Because the law deems some books “pornographic” or “obscene,” it also creates the possibility that teachers who provide books that feature LGBT content to students could be given third-degree felony charges. 

And, as mentioned in my previous post, he hasn't stopped there. 

Last month, DeSantis announced that he would ban the AP African American studies course, saying that the course, which had initially included readings on Black feminism, the Black queer experience, and the Black Lives Matter movement, violated his Stop Woke Act, and was “pushing an agenda on our kids.” 

Sadly, the College Board cowardly acquiesced in this effort to quell inquiry, and now DeSantis has set his sights even higher.

Last week, the governor announced a sweeping agenda to overhaul the state’s public universities, aiming to make their curricula more conservative by eliminating tenure protections for progressive faculty and requiring courses on “Western Civilization.” He’s started with the New College of Florida, a small liberal arts honors college with an artsy reputation. There, DeSantis installed a new board made up of Christian college administrators, Republican think-tank denizens, and the right-wing online influencer Christopher Rufo. The board promptly fired the college president, and has set about reshaping the mission and instruction of the college in DeSantis’ image.

De Santis's motives in all of this crass obstructionism is transparent.

Schools are spaces where lots of voters – and crucially, lots of the white, conservative voters that DeSantis needs to mobilize – feel they have a stake. It’s easy to get people riled up and panicked about kids, easy to pray on people’s protectiveness towards their children as a way to exploit their anxieties about the future, about a changing culture, about lost innocence. And frankly, it’s easy to get people to be mad at teachers...

And if that weren't bad enough, there is a more sinister interpretation to what he is doing.

... there is a more foundational reason why DeSantis and the far right are attacking education: it is the means by which our young people are made into citizens. Schools and universities are laboratories of aspiration, places where young people cultivate their own capacities, expose themselves to the experiences and worldviews of others, and learn what will be required of them to live responsible, tolerant lives in a pluralist society.

It is in school where they learn that social hierarchies do not necessarily correspond to personal merit; it is in school where they discover the mistakes of the past, and where they gain the tools not to repeat them. No wonder the DeSantis right, with it’s fear of critique and devotion to regressive modes of domination, seems to hostile to letting kids learn: education is how kids grow up to be the kinds of adults they can’t control.

Education has traditionally been viewed as a tool of liberation from ignorance, of social progress and increased opportunity for all. DeSantis has badly perverted it, lustily cheered on by those who would like to believe that the status quo of the 1950's (or perhaps even further back) worked just fine for everyone who mattered.

 

 

 

UPDATED: Who Needs Reparations?

According to the 'new' history to be taught in Florida, it may be African Americans who owe white America reparations, given the 'benefits' that slavery conferred upon them.

Sound ludicrous? Not in Ron DeSantis's world.

Florida’s public schools will now teach students that some Black people benefited from slavery because it taught them useful skills, part of new African American history standards approved Wednesday that were blasted by a state teachers' union as a “step backward.”

The Florida State Board of Education’s new standards includes controversial language about how “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit,” according to a 216-page document about the state’s 2023 standards in social studies, posted by the Florida Department of Education.

I can't help but wonder if working endless days under a hot sun with no pay might have been one of those skills. Or perhaps the liberal application of the lash was an extended character-building exercise meted out generously by selfless plantation masters? Revisionist history offers a myriad of possibilities.

And lest we forget, the race massacres were apparently a two-way street:

Other language that has drawn the ire of some educators and education advocates includes teaching about how Black people were also perpetrators of violence during race massacres.

 That language says, “Instruction includes acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans but is not limited to 1906 Atlanta Race Riot, 1919 Washington, D.C. Race Riot, 1920 Ocoee Massacre, 1921 Tulsa Massacre and the 1923 Rosewood Massacre.”

 The Florida Education Association, a statewide teachers’ union representing about 150,000 teachers, called the new standards “a disservice to Florida’s students and are a big step backward for a state that has required teaching African American history since 1994.”

The union said it is troubling that at the high school level, the standards conflate the 1920 Ocoee Massacre, when at least 30 African Americans were killed for attempting to vote, with “acts of violence perpetrated by African Americans.” And in middle school, the standards require students be taught slavery was beneficial to African Americans because it helped them develop skills, the union said.

Ron DeSantis, the architect of these changes that prove everything Orwell warned us about, is frequently quoted as saying "Florida is where woke goes to die." Anyone with even a modicum of critical intelligence, I'm certain, would prefer to be 'woke' rather than imprisoned in a dystopian dreamscape fueled by the distortions of Florida's Ministry of Truth. 

UPDATE: Can Ron DeSantis explain how being enslaved was beneficial to Celia?

In 1850, a fourteen-year-old girl in Missouri named Celia was purchased by enslaver, Robert Newsom. Over the course of five years, he repeatedly raped her. On June 23, 1855 while pregnant with her second child, Celia defended herself against more abuse, resulting in the death of her enslaver and rapist. During Celia’s trial, Newsom’s grandson William Powell testified. Powell testified that Celia had complained that Newsom repeatedly demanded sex and that she had approached other Newsom family members in a vain attempt to stop the rapes.  Powell also admitted that Celia told him that her attack on Newsom came from desperation and that she only intended to injure, not kill. Celia was found guilty. An appeal was filed. The Missouri Supreme Court ultimately ruled against her appeal. On December 21, 1855 at 2:30 P.M., the state of Missouri murdered Celia on the gallows. Are we going to teach children this history? Or are we going to continue to whitewash history because it makes some people uncomfortable?

H/t Calés McGinnis 

 

Where The Sun No Longer Shines

                                         

That would be the so-called Sunshine State, Florida, under the heavy hand of its governor and apparent presidential aspirant, Ron DeSantis. Things are becoming so repressive there that a number of groups are now warning tourists about its 'hostile laws'. 

The NAACP, long an advocate for Black Americans, joined the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a Latino civil rights organization, and Equality Florida, a gay rights advocacy group, in issuing travel advisories for the Sunshine State, where tourism is one of the state’s largest job sectors.

The warning approved Saturday by the NAACP’s board of directors tells tourists that, before traveling to Florida, they should understand the state of Florida “devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color.”

DeSantis is proud of labelling his state as the place WOKE goes to die. His legislation suggests a real appetite for repressing anything that would contribute to critical thinking, something that has always been anathema to the extreme right.

... the DeSantis’ administration in January rejected the College Board’s Advanced Placement African American Studies course. DeSantis and Republican lawmakers also have pressed forward with measures that ban state colleges from having programs on diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as critical race theory, and also passed the Stop WOKE Act that restricts certain race-based conversations and analysis in schools and businesses.

In a move no doubt prompted by a passion for inclusivity, DeSantis has also targeted Hispanics, restricting local governments in a number of ways, including requiring

hospitals that accept Medicaid to include a citizenship question on intake forms, which critics have said is intended to dissuade immigrants living in the U.S. illegally from seeking medical care. 

“The actions taken by Governor DeSantis have created a shadow of fear within communities across the state,” said Lydia Medrano, a LULAC vice president for the Southeast region.

Equality Florida is also distressed over Florida's repressiveness under DeSantis, issuing this warning:

“This is an all out attack on freedom. Free states don’t strip parents of the right to make healthcare decisions for their children. Free states don’t ban books, censor curriculum, or muzzle free speech. DeSantis doesn’t see freedom as a value worth defending, he sees it as a campaign slogan in his bid for the White House. And he is setting freedom -- and Florida’s reputation -- ablaze in his desperation to win the GOP nomination. The nation should be on high alert. We are all Floridians as DeSantis seeks to export this blueprint of authoritarianism to the rest of the country."

There is undoubtedly a constituency for the governor's nonsense. By labelling things as either black or white, he is providing succor to those for whom thinking is a chore. Happily, there are many others still capable of deep critical thinking who refuse to let these assaults on freedom go unchallenged. 

 

 

 

 

Caught Without A Figleaf

While I have been retired from teaching for quite a number of years, every so often I am reminded of the often counter-productive influence that parents can exert over the learning experience. I'll get to what prompted my latest revisitation of the past in a moment, but first, a couple of contextual memories.

One year, when teaching Grade Nine, I was given a note from a parent who objected to her child being taught about Greek myths. They were, apparently, counter to their religion, the parent apparently under the misapprehension that I was somehow promoting false gods. I offered an alternative course of study for the student while the rest of the class pursued the subject, but I never heard another word from the parent, so all proceeded as before.

Another time, a parent phoned me objecting to his daughter reading Flowers for Algernon, which contained a very, very circumspect allusion to sexual activity. This was part of an independent study of novels which came with a very extensive reading list. The parent informed me that such a book should not be made available to any student, and I told him that while he was well within his parental rights to exercise influence over what his daughter read, no one had the right to dictate what others could or could read. End of discussion, and his daughter (an excellent student, by the way) chose another book.

In the intervening years, thanks to feckless administrators who choose political expediency over principles, Canadian parents have gained much more power over what schools teach, but the problem seems to be particularly acute in backward states such as Florida, where the governor (and likely presidential nominee aspirant) Ron DeSantis has made it his mission to restrict the things students there can learn, all under the figleaf of combatting 'the woke agenda.' As he said last year after his second gubernatorial victory, "Florida is where woke goes to die."

It apparently also is the place where art appreciation is an endangered course of study, given its 'wokeness'.

Ah, the Renaissance. A period that saw the growth of intellectual reason, the flowering of art and culture, and a lot of very hardcore pornography.

Such is the opinion of aggrieved parents of kids at Tallahassee classical school in Florida, anyway. Their sixth-graders (who are aged around 11-12) were shown a picture of Michelangelo’s sculpture of David during a Renaissance art class. Fairly normal, one might think – particularly for a school that advertises itself as providing a classical education. Nope: a firing offence. One parent called the sculpture “pornographic” and so much outrage ensued that the principal of the school, Hope Carrasquilla, was forced out.

The 'sin' of Ms. Carrasquilla and her staff, apparently, was a failure to send out a parental letter 'warning' that their  kids were about to be exposed to an exposed statue, which set off three parents:

 According to Slate, who interviewed Barney Bishop III, the school board chair responsible for forcing Carrasquilla out of her job, three parents were behind the bulk of the David-related outrage. Three parents. Three! But the number of angry parents doesn’t matter, because, according to Bishop, parents are always right. “Parental rights are supreme, and that means protecting the interests of all parents, whether it’s one, 10, 20 or 50,” Bishop said to the Tallahassee Democrat.

Shockingly, the board chair has little confidence in teachers' professional judgement:

“The rights of parents, that trumps the rights of kids,” he told Slate. “Teachers are the experts? Teachers have all the knowledge? Are you kidding me? I know lots of teachers that are very good, but to suggest they are the authorities, you’re on better drugs than me.”

While most of the world will likely be amused by the retrograde thinking in Florida, its implications are much wider, as I have recently posted about. The threat to critical thinking is very real:

it’s just the latest example of a terrifying lurch towards censorship and authoritarianism in Florida. Governor Ron DeSantis, who has been described as the “Education Governor” is on a censorship crusade and his first major battleground has been schools. DeSantis wants to completely reshape K-12 and higher education in the state and, so far, he’s been getting his way. Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature has already passed a number of laws limiting how gender, sexuality and race can be taught. Now the state is trying to limit sex education with a draft law that would ban schools teaching about menstrual cycles before the sixth grade. Give it a few years and showing a child a picture of Michelangelo’s David will be a criminal offence, punishable by firing squad.

Knowledge is power. The growing authoritarian impulse in the United States in general, and Florida in particular, makes it clear that education has become weaponized to maximize the chances that those in power stay in power, while the disenfranchised remain where they have always been: at the bottom of the social and political hierarchy. 

Such Blatant Hypocrisy

 

Being on the right side of history is a popular desire these days, and many opportunities are afforded by Black History Month. It offers progressives and companies the chance to stand with the Black community in expressing pride in their multitude of achievements that many people are unaware of. If you doubt those achievements, a quick online search will enlighten you.

Unfortunately, many companies citing solidarity with Black people and an abhorrence of racism do so as a kind of corporate virtue-signaling, while their true character is to be found elsewhere.

Such is the case in Ron DeSantis's Florida, where the governor's corporate contributors reveal a startling hypocrisy. And that hypocrisy envelops many national brands, all quite recognizable.

Amazon, AT&T, Coca-Cola, Comcast, DoorDash, General Motors and Walmart have all made public statements in celebration of Black History Month. Google posted online on 1 February: “Learn how Google is recognizing and celebrating Black voices, joy and success this Black History Month.”

But the Center for Political Accountability found that each of these companies donated significant sums of money to political groups that prominently supported DeSantis.

Another egregious offender, at least before relations with DeSantis went south, is Disney.

... early in the election cycle ... Disney contributed $50,000 to his re-election campaign and $125,000 to the Republican party of Florida, which supported his campaign and inauguration.

The list goes on, and you need only read the Guardian article to get more names. 

What makes this so shameful? As I have written previously, DeSantis is on a campaign to control what Florida's children read and learn about Black history.

 Earlier this month, the second-term governor announced plans to block state colleges from having programs on diversity, equity and inclusion as well as critical race theory, or CRT, which examines the ways in which racism was embedded into American law and other modern institutions, maintaining the dominance of white people.

The DeSantis administration also blocked a new advanced placement course on African American studies from being taught in high schools, saying it violates state law and is historically inaccurate. In the new framework, topics including Black Lives Matter, reparations and queer theory are not part of the exam.

And last year, DeSantis signed the “Stop Woke Act” that restricts certain race-based conversations and analysis in schools and businesses. The law bars instruction that defines people as necessarily oppressed or privileged based on their race.

A US state shelved m book – yet all I was doing was trying to help people live their lives

Fox Fisher

Read more

The governor has imposed sweeping restrictions on books in public schools, forcing some teachers to remove books from their libraries or use paper to cover up their shelves. They face felony charges if unsanctioned books are present in their classrooms.

ThThe pattern of repression is clear, and it is spreading.

At least 25 states have considered legislation or other steps to limit how race can be taught, according to an analysis by Education Week. Eight states have banned or limited the teaching of critical race theory or similar concepts through laws or administrative actions.

     All of which reminds us of the true nature of the corporate imperative: to make money, to pursue its fiduciary obligations to shareholders, and to lie with ease when it benefits them.

At  least we still have journalists willing and able to provide a transparency that many would be more than happy to obscure.

 

UPDATED: The Closing Of The American Mind

One could convincingly argue that the American mind has been closed for quite some time. Nonetheless, recent legislation in Florida ensures a tighter seal as it seeks to further limit the capacity for critical thinking.

School teachers in Florida’s Manatee county are removing books from their classrooms or physically covering them up after a new bill went into effect that prohibited material unless deemed appropriate by a librarian, or “certified media specialist”.

If a teacher is found in violation of these guidelines, they could face felony charges.

The new guidelines for the Florida law, known as HB 1467, outline the books be free of pornographic material, suited to student needs and their ability to comprehend the material, and appropriate for the grade level and age group.

The driving force behind this goosestep march toward ignorance is Florida's governor and presidential aspirant, Ron DeSantis,

whose administration says it is actively working to “protect parental rights”, which includes a prohibition on childhood education on gender, sexual orientation and critical race theory.

As part of his appeal to the party’s rightwing base DeSantis has sought to portray himself as a culture war warrior, cracking down on LGBTQ rights and taking conservative stances on the fight against Covid-19 and a host of other issues such as immigration.

This self-professed enemy of 'woke culture' has both enraged and instilled fear in educators.

The Manatee Education Association union president, Pat Barber, told local TV station Fox 13: “We have people who have spent their entire careers building their classroom libraries based on their professional and educational experience and understanding of the age of the children they teach.”

Barber added: “Now, their professional judgment and training are being substituted for the opinion of anyone who wishes to review and challenge the books. We’re focused on things that cause teachers to want to walk away from education because they can’t focus on their mission of educating children.”

Some teachers are even covering up their library books with paper.

Don Falls, a history teacher at Manatee high school, told the Herald-Tribune newspaper: “If you have a lot of books like I do, probably several hundred, it is not practical to run all of them through [the vetting process] so we have to cover them up.”

Far too many people prefer to live their lives in ignorance and denial of the world beyond their front lawn. Until now, teachers have been a bulwark against such darkness, but once again the political barbarians have breached the gates. 

There would seem to be few remaining defences.

UPDATE: Thanks to TB for providing this link that shows not everyone is willing to lie down in the face of DeSantis's repression.

And there is this from Rural:

 

 

 

 

Ripped From The Headlines?

There are days while I scroll through Twitter that I come upon a headline that seems to be ripped from a satirical source, such as The Onion or The Beaverton. Today was one such day.

RON DESANTIS’S NEW CIVICS INITIATIVE INVOLVES TEACHING KIDS SLAVERY IN AMERICA WASN’T THAT BAD

Sadly, the source for this headline is Vanity Fair, and is yet another potent reminder of the steady, seemingly inexorable, decline of the United States, where lies are truth and truth are lies.

Lest young people come to see their country in a less than favourable light (i.e., as the rest of the world sees them), the Florida governor is acting with resolve and dispatch, leaving teachers attending Florida Department of Education conferences this summer stunned.

Tatiana Ahlbum, a 12th-grade government and economics teacher at Fort Lauderdale High, said it was stressed that the majority of enslaved people in America had been born into slavery, that the colonies bought fewer enslaved people from the transatlantic slave trade than has been previously portrayed, and that less than 4% of enslaved people worldwide lived in America, without noting that that percentage still constituted millions of people. 

Meanwhile, another slide reportedly quoted George Washington and Thomas Jefferson as saying they wanted to get rid of slavery, while crucially leaving out the fact that both men enslaved people, with the latter owning more than 600 in his lifetime and also famously raping at least one of them. Ahlbum added that few of the facts presented included cited sources. “We were not told which documents stated this or how to find them, just that they existed,” she said.

And that church and state separation thingy? 

The founding fathers didn‘t actually mean that. Incredibly, several slides reportedly stated that this is a major “misconception.” During a breakout session, presenters reportedly mentioned, more than once, “the influence Jesus Christ and the Bible had on the country’s foundation.” Richard Judd, a Nova High School social studies teacher, told the Times, “There was this Christian nationalism philosophy that was just baked into everything that was there.” He added that “ending school prayer was compared to upholding segregation.”

But perhaps DeSantis's heart is in the right place, He just doesn't want people to feel bad about themselves. 

The news of these conferences, which are voluntary, comes months after DeSantis signed a bill banning public schools and private businesses from making white people feel bad during lessons or training about discrimination.

Florida has traditionally been seen as the place old people go to die. It would seem that description can now be aptly applied to young minds as well. 

 

Freedom To Think? Not In Florida

 

Some may think I spend too much time these days writing about the Benighted United States of America. Perhaps I do, but its seemingly inexorable slide into ignorance and autocracy is surely something that needs to be monitored and fought against. The latter, of course is not my battle directly, but any movement that works to restrict access to information that all democratic countries need to make wise choices should face universal condemnation.

While many states qualify for such censure, Florida seems to be the leading poster-state in this regard. Governor Ron DeSantis, using his "anti-woke' rhetoric to garner votes from the ignorant and stupid, seems to be leading the charge against good citizenship in general, and education in particular by ensuring that people are kept in the dark about that country's dark, racist past and present.

 I have been doing considerable study in the past few months of Black American history. A National Geographic documentary, Rise Again: Tulsa and The Red Summer, informed me of things I had no idea of. While many have heard of the Tulsa Race Massacre, I would imagine many (and I was one of them) have no idea of the number of massacres that preceded Tulsa. The full documentary is now available on YouTube, and I place it at the end of this post.

The above, and anything else that would result in an informed populace is now anathema in Florida. The redoubtable TizzyEnt explains:

For those who believe in being well-informed, here is the Tulsa video which I hope you get a chance to view at some point.

As well, allow me to make one more recommendation. Reconstruction: The Accident of Race and Color is a book that taught me things I had no idea of regarding the history of race in the U.S., including the fact that in the antebellum South, there were places such as Charleston and New Orleans that had mixed-race communities with thriving, prosperous and essentially integrated communities. It was, in fact, the Reconstruction Era that robbed them of those conditions and rights that they had long enjoyed.

It is this kind of knowledge that DeSantis and his ilk are working very hard to suppress.

The Veil Of Ignorance

Lay not that flattering unction to your soul....

It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,

Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,

Infects unseen.

- Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4

The above attests to the destructive, corrosive effects of not confronting one's wrongdoing. The wrongdoing does not go away, but continues to fester beneath the surface, often with severe consequences.

It seems the perfect metaphor to apply to  America's reluctance, and in many cases, refusal, to confront its racism.

As I recently wrote, Florida, under its governor, Ron DeSantis, seems particularly loathe to address that past, judging by the restrictions on what books and what curriculum can be taught. The main criterion for acceptability seems to be material that will keep young people in ignorance about what many of their fellow Americans have dealt with in the past and continue to confront today.

As a result of all of this, the College Board, the organization responsible for AP courses, has changed content and made optional some parts of its African American Studies. It denies that it was influenced by DeSantis's recent proclamations.

The NYT begs to differ. When the revised course was revealed at a glitzy Washington party, it was clear the board had succumbed to political pressure.

The College Board purged the names of many Black writers and scholars associated with critical race theory, the queer experience and Black feminism. It ushered out some politically fraught topics, like Black Lives Matter, from the formal curriculum.

And it added something new: “Black conservatism” is now offered as an idea for a research project.

NYT Editorial Board member, Mara Gay, elaborated  on the College Board's timidity:

They downgraded the study of Black Lives Matter, of reparations, of queer life and of incarceration. They removed prominent writers like Ta-Nehisi Coates and bell hooks, who have helped so many people understand the relationship between race, class and feminism.

It is no coincidence that the Black writers under assault, like Mr. Coates and Ms. hooks, have been militant in refusing to allow America to forget. “The time to remember is now,” Ms. hooks wrote. “The time to speak a counter hegemonic race talk that is filled with the passion of remembrance and resistance is now. All our words are needed.”

Awareness of Black history is a threat to the groups promoting racism, because 

[i]t humanizes the enslaved and their descendants. It lays bare the terrible cost of white supremacy, not only to Black Americans, but to the nation. It opens the door for exactly the reckoning that makes interracial coalitions possible, giving life to democracy and pluralism and stripping would-be tyrants of their power.

The problem is that looking directly at this history is a prospect that terrifies many white Americans. 

Canada, hardly a country awaiting canonization, at least has had the rectitude to move toward truth and reconciliation as it attempts to confront and atone for its racism toward the Indigenous.

Not so in the United States, which brings to mind an old proverb, reputedly of Russian origin, that says, Better a bitter truth than a sweet lie.

Clearly, it is a notion with which many, many Americans vehemently disagree.

 

 

 

. 

No More 'Good Guys'?

When we look at the world today, it is undeniable that the most powerful countries are led by evil men. Russia's Putin, Amerika's Trump and China's Xi  JinPing readily come to mind, as does Benjamin Netanyahu leading the nuclear State of Israel. And I think it would be to declare the obvious that none of the aforementioned care about their people, except as means to certain ends.

While we expect authoritarian rulers to see their people as fodder, I have never really had a sense until now of a specific war being waged against the people of the U.S. by its government. To be sure, almost all American governments have cruelly abused their poor, their disenfranchised, their minorities. And of course that demographic has always provided the bulk of fodder in all of Amerika's post-WW11 military misadventures. However, one could almost have believed the abuse was rooted in the American disdain for the downtrodden (see the American Dream) as well as its historically racist nature.

However, to me it now appears that a wider battle is being waged by Amerika against its general population,  a kind of social eugenics, in which a wide swath of a credulous population will be gradually eliminated, While it might seem a conspiratorial thought, there is evidence to support my odd thesis.

Consider, for example the changes at the National Institutes of Health, led by the unhinged Bobby Kennedy Jr. Unqualified ethically, morally, intellectually or temperamentally, Kennedy, with the tacit permission of Trump, is doing his damndest to undermine the health of Americans. Claiming he wants to make America healthy again, he has systematically cut all manner of research grants.

Between late February and early April 2025, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) executed an unprecedented wave of grant terminations, impacting a total of 694 active grants. 

The broad distribution of terminated grants demonstrates a systemic reshaping of NIH’s research portfolio. Nearly every institute experienced cutbacks, but the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) bore a disproportionate share of the reductions, accounting for 30% of the total funding loss. This notable concentration of cuts suggests targeted policy shifts or budgetary realignments that may adversely affect ongoing efforts to address persistent health disparities among minority populations.

Then, of course, there is Kennedy's broad undermining of confidence in vaccinations, recently claiming, for example, that healthy people have no need of vaccines. It is a position that led to him being excoriated this past week during a senate hearing over his tenure thus far:

The Senate’s second-highest ranking Republican, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY)—a physician—delivered a blistering rebuke of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., accusing him of advancing vaccine policies that undermine public health. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy—also a physician—also harshly questioned the HHS chief.

“Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines,” Senator  Barrasso began. “Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.”

"The public has seen measles outbreaks, leadership with the National Institutes of Health questioning the use of mRNA vaccines, the recently confirmed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fired. Americans don’t know who to rely on,” Barrasso exclaimed.

How many more will die or become permanently disabled because the NIHS is led by a lunatic?

And that lunacy is filtering down to the state level. Florida, under the banner of freedom for all, has made a decision.

Florida will move to end all vaccine mandates in the state, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo announced Wednesday.

The move would make Florida the first state to end a longstanding – and constitutionally upheld – practice of requiring certain vaccines for school students.

The state health department will immediately move to end all non-statutory mandates in the state, Ladapo said at a news conference. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was also at the event, said state lawmakers would then look into developing a legislative package to end any remaining mandates.

Ladapo [a Black man] said that every vaccine mandate “is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”

Now, there is much more evidence I could adduce to support my contention, but let's cut to the chase. Who benefits if there is a substantial die-off of Americans? It is the real movers and shakers of society, the powerful elite, who neither respect nor need "the masses" and really don't care for the 'burden' of taxation to take care of them. With large numbers ultimately eliminated, that burden will be much reduced.

You might quite legitimately ask, "But what if substantial numbers of MAGATS perish? Who will vote for Trump or his successor if not the credulous? To that I can only say such a question is predicated on the belief that meaningful elections will continue in Amerika. That is an assumption I am not, at this point, prepared to grant you.