Censoring “AmericA”
“Censoring the word “America” from our own schools is something Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden would never have thought possible. Michigan has done it without a whimper.
Keep America’ in Michigan schools State bureaucrats want to do what Stalin, Osama could only dream about continues..
In perhaps a well-intentioned, but pernicious example of political correctness, the Michigan Department of Education is attempting to ban the “America” and “American” from our public schools. Even though the word “America” appears in the department’s own civics and government benchmarks, the department’s style protocol for the Michigan Education Assessment Program requires that “America” and “Americans” be expunged from our testing and grade level expectations. Last week, the department ordered that our hard-working teachers not utter the words.
We’re all ‘North Americans’
The Department of Education asserts that “Americans” includes Mexicans, Canadians and others in the Western Hemisphere, so referring to U.S. residents as Americans is inappropriate. In the department’s view, “America” happens to include South, Central and North America. Accordingly, when referring to the colonial period, the state bureaucracy requires teachers to refer to “the colonies of North America” or “North Americans.” After the American Revolution, the nation is called the United States (not of America).
The state’s edict would be laughable if it were not so disgraceful. Instead of focusing on better teaching methods and educational resources to help our hard-working teachers and parents, the Department of Education spends its energy on confusing, misleading, historically inaccurate and counterproductive wordplay.
One can only imagine how teachers struggle to meet the semantic dictates of an educational bureaucracy gone awry. According to the department, before the American Revolution, George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were North Americans. But so were the French colonists in the Louisiana Territory, the Spanish settlers in Mexico and the British colonists in Canada — not to mention the Native Americans.
No ‘American’ Revolution?
After the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers no longer qualified as North Americans, but apparently the British, Spanish, French and Native Americans did. What people in the United States are to be called after the Revolution is not clear, so long as they are not referred to as Americans.
Although the style protocol does not require educators to change formal titles such as “America the Beautiful,” the students will apparently now believe the song is about a hemisphere and not a nation. The American Revolution is now the North American Revolution. Little did the writers of the Contract with America in 1994 realize that they were making an agreement with Mexico and Canada. The Voice of America obviously is broadcasting the inspirational messages of Brazil and Belize across the globe.
‘Internationally friendly’
The Michigan Department of Education considers the dictate “internationally friendly.” Why being friendly to an international audience or perspective is important in teaching and learning American history is incomprehensible.
That we would sacrifice our language to the altar of internationalism is a betrayal to the American spirit. Indeed, the whole idea of America is to be a beacon of light, a shining city on the hill, which inspires the rest of the world.
The word “America” is the most important word of all in learning about the history of the United States and our civics. America is an inspiration and an aspiration for generations of souls who strove, and continue to strive, for freedom and liberty.”
Ahhhhhhhh…so now the politically correct war machine thinks it is about to hijack our very birthright too.
Have we ALL lost the compass for what is right and sane?
The liberals are marching forth with Orwellian fervor and are now attempting to rob our children of the honor and pride of country, living inside their little hearts… and all the guts and glory that made this country develop from nothing but wilderness into the beacon that it truly is.
America’s schools are morphing into politically correct incubators to feed this rampant epidemic.
This is nothing short of a declaration of war.
Parents had better arm themselves and learn the meaning of the word “no.”
AMERICA: We will not quell that word.
The greatest Nation on Earth. That’s right.
Arrogant?..nah…simply truthful. But sometimes……..
Truth hurts doesn’t it?
Tel Chai Nation suggest Tancredo for Pres.,third world county has some insights about life and Open posts., Check out The Amboy Times for a great post on the way things ought to be!
May 29th, 2006 at 10:32 am
What a waste of space these edu-crats are.
How many teachers could be hired by eliminating moronic bureaucrats like the “internationally friendly” Michigan Department of Education ?
I recieved this poem today,
the Michigan Department of Education reminds us
why
“Today beside their graves we must
Renew allegiance to their trust;”
Regards,
Terry Jim
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The finest tribute we can pay
Unto our hero dead today,
Is not a rose wreath, white and red,
In memory of the blood they shed;
It is to stand beside each mound,
Each couch of consecrated ground,
And pledge ourselves as warriors true
Unto the work they died to do.
Into God’s valleys where they lie
At rest, beneath the open sky,
Triumphant now o’er every foe,
As living tributes let us go.
No wreath of rose or immortelles
Or spoken word or tolling bells
Will do to-day, unless we give
Our pledge that liberty shall live.
Our hearts must be the roses red
We place above our hero dead;
Today beside their graves we must
Renew allegiance to their trust;
Must bare our heads and humbly say
We hold the Flag as dear as they,
And stand, as once they stood, to die
To keep the Stars and Stripes on high.
The finest tribute we can pay
Unto our hero dead today
Is not of speech or roses red,
But living, throbbing hearts instead,
That shall renew the pledge they sealed
With death upon the battlefield:
That freedom’s flag shall bear no stain
And free men wear no tyrant’s chain.
- Edgar Guest
May 29th, 2006 at 11:04 am
PC, leftist, anti-American propaganda run amok! Excellent post.
Left leaning Europeans have LONG decried the use of the terms “America” and “Americans” to describe the nation and inhabitants of the U.S.A.
In French, German and Italian, America and Americans are designated as “United States” and “United Statesians” respectively. They leave off “of America” for convenience sake.
Wait’ll the boob-o-crats in Michigan figure out that the continent (there’s only one continent here according to the Euros) is named after an Italian map maker!
Hilarious!
D. Ox
May 29th, 2006 at 11:42 am
Great story I linked back to it
May 29th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
It makes sense if it’s all part of the great liberal/socialist North American Community that our President seems to be leading us toward. I suspect that Daddy’s “one world” thinking has been learned well by “W”.
Up until this unexplainable- “felonius illegals get amnesty, vote”- by conservatives during an election year, I never would have given conspiracy theories a second’s thought -now I am on the brink of accepting the NAC as a conspiracy – nothing else makes sense -when they know it will cost the party dearly for years -if not decades! They don’t care what we think!
May 29th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Terry Jim..thanks so much for the poem..:)
Welcome D.Ox!..and thanks for yer insights.
TY Right Wing Guy..and happy Holiday!.
DL, I couldn’t agree more…all the more reason for us to fight back!!!
May 29th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Thanks for the beautiful and very truthful post. Oh, and btw, YES this is the greatest nation on earth and that is why we are so despised and envied. You would think other nations would rather emulate us than downplay, downgrade, and try to destroy us. So much for setting an example, we have, but the rest just prefer small mindedness to open mindedness.
Happy Memorial Day to you hon and to all who read here at this wonderful blog!
May 29th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
REMEMBER THOSE WIDE OPEN BORDERS ON “”BOTH”" SIDE OF MY GLORIOUS COUNTRY… THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
WELL DO NOT LET THE DOOR HIT YOU ON THE WAY OUT!!!!!!
May 29th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
America the Beautiful. God bless America.
America then, now, and forever.
Niced post Angel.
May 29th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
Uh ….. so what am I suppose to call you? ….. what a bunch of garbage, put them on a boat, and give them a little shove towards Cuba and see how far that attitude gets.You all need to start writing letters to that place.
May 29th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
Geez, it’s getting to the point where public scholls just need to be shut down, forever.
May 29th, 2006 at 9:54 pm
Censoring America…
This school district needs to have it’s federal funding pulled now. Let them collect thier money from “North America”….
May 29th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
The two stupidest classes of people in education today are educrats (professors and bureaucrats within the educational estabishment) and pubschool administrators.
A symposium of educrats/administrators: Dumber than a sack of rocks. Just breathing the same air as these people can make a normal person stupider.
Now, on to their bad points…
May 29th, 2006 at 10:42 pm
Can we have vouchers now? HUH?
Whenever my school fed me a load like this, my father would tell me: “Memorize whatever they want you to put on the test and pass it. Learn the truth.”
May 30th, 2006 at 9:47 am
What happens to “American Pie”??
May 30th, 2006 at 9:50 am
So the Public schools can server French Fries but we cant say america. Whos our president?
May 30th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
Nationalism is a hard term for people to swallow. “American” stands for an individual who lives in America as a citizen, and follows the rulings of its country. (Does not mean that he must agree in policy and principle to all that is decided.).
Human nature has difficulty in adhering to an idea or policy, which is not self-directed or self-imposed, therefore NATIONALISM which subscribes to the theory that the nation comes before the individual is hard for most–unless they gather benefits (self-preservation) from it.
Long live the nation of AMERICA… cvm
May 30th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
You know what, we have to pry the educational system from the libbies. I’m sick & tired of what they’ve done to generations of our children. Why don’t Johnny & Janie know how to read? I know, because the school system is a multicultural morass that doesn’t know the three R’s, much less anything else.
May 30th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
How absolutely horrible. It makes me ill.
May 31st, 2006 at 8:03 am
American Cheese anyone?