Florida textbook bans

[CharonY]

The governor of Florida (who is likely going to be a presidential candidate) has banned what he essentially called "woke" topics from textbooks. Often with rather unclear guidelines https://abcnews.go.com/US/textbook-publishers-left-dark-florida-rejects-long-list/story?id=84244697

After math textbooks, apparently social studies are next on line and publishers are trying to sanitize US history https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/16/us/florida-textbooks-african-american-history.html including removing mentioning of race in the account of the arrest of Rosa Parks. Overtly, this is of course an attempt to galvanize the base, but also a clear attack on academic freedom (which is far more limited in K12 ), using authoritarian tactics. To me, it also seems like an attempt to brainwash the youth into a narrow mindset that would make them amenable to GOP ideology.

I am now wondering if folks have any thoughts or insights into how effective (and lawful) these tactics are going to be? 

[TheVat]

DeSantis is like a form of ChatGPT producing responses to populist inputs.  If insentient robots ruled, their proclamations on "intellectual freedom" would often sound Orwellian the way DeS does.  The thing is, when he proposes policies that are blatantly unconstitutional, and sounds most like a robot with no thoughts of its own, he is at his most repellent to most of the electorate.  You can't fool enough people forever with this crap.  The policies will crumble in the Courts, he will look weak and foolish, and he will fade from the scene.  Crikey I'm optimistic this morning.

It also helps that DeS has many in the GOP abandoning him after his recent Trump-bot-like dismissal of Russia's attack on Ukraine.  David Frum, a conservative columnist, summed it up as 

"Message: Tough on drag queens. Weak on national security.”

I think this helps to further mark him as someone following simple culture war algorithms but who is otherwise clueless to what's happening in the world.  Russia trying to take territory by force?  Red tides killing Florida shores?  Ex felons cheated out of voting?  Ecological disaster in the swamps?  massive affordable housing crisis in Florida cities?  Pfft!  Wokeness is the REAL problem!

[toucana]

2 hours ago, CharonY said:

The governor of Florida (who is likely going to be a presidential candidate) has banned what he essentially called "woke" topics from textbooks. Often with rather unclear guidelines https://abcnews.go.com/US/textbook-publishers-left-dark-florida-rejects-long-list/story?id=84244697

After math textbooks, apparently social studies are next on line and publishers are trying to sanitize US history https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/16/us/florida-textbooks-african-american-history.html including removing mentioning of race in the account of the arrest of Rosa Parks. Overtly, this is of course an attempt to galvanize the base, but also a clear attack on academic freedom (which is far more limited in K12 ), using authoritarian tactics. To me, it also seems like an attempt to brainwash the youth into a narrow mindset that would make them amenable to GOP ideology.

I am now wondering if folks have any thoughts or insights into how effective (and lawful) these tactics are going to be? 

One of the problems with trying to enact measures of this type is that you have define your terms and legal reasoning in words that can withstand a forensic challenge in court. Some of the more extreme measures decreed by De Santis have fallen at this very first hurdle - as in the case of the highly politicised dismissal of an elected democrat prosecutor Andrew Warren in Tampa, whose suspension for allegedly being too ‘woke’ is now under investigation by a federal judge as an overeach of executive authority by governor De Santis.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/federal-judge-decide-desantis-unlawfully-suspended-woke-prosecutor/story?id=94356198

A more amusing and entirely self-constructed minefield for conservative pundits lies in trying to define what the word ‘woke’ is supposed to mean. Conservative author Bethany Mandel was recently asked by a current affairs TV host Briahna Joy Gray to define the word ‘woke’. It should have been a relatively straightforward task, as Bethany Mandel has just co-authored a new book called ‘Stolen Youth’ that devotes an entire chapter to explaining what this buzz-word means to to modern conservative thinkers - But it didn’t go quite as well as she might have hoped during a now viral TV interview:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/W7iWEEcPKoQ

Edited March 16, 2023 by toucana
'as she' final sentence

[StringJunky]

2 hours ago, CharonY said:

To me, it also seems like an attempt to brainwash the youth into a narrow mindset that would make them amenable to GOP ideology.

Sounds like Russia's present course.

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

DeSantis is like a form of ChatGPT producing responses to populist inputs. 

I like this description very much... it says a lot about politicians in general and totally applies to  GOP members, like Trump, DeSantis et al.

 

[Phi for All]

I think DeSantis is a typical toxic male bully-type, cowardly to the core, so of course he became a lawyer and a politician. He was such a weasel during the pandemic wrt the MAGA anti-vaxxers that he wouldn't even tell the terrified people in the state he runs whether he'd had the vaccine or not (and remember when he bullied a bunch of school kids into taking off their masks before a press conference?). And all these books he's banning are just more red meat for the ignorant base he manipulates. I don't see how this gets past legal review, which makes it a big fat waste of taxes. 

I think his stances may play well to the bumpkins who voted him in, but once he tries to go on the national stage he's going to have to back off on his extremism, and that's going to make him look weak. When he goes back to being toxic Ronny D then I hope Americans have had enough of it and vote for anybody else. DeSantis is such a lying fascist that apparently he gave a statement that him banning books was a fake news hoax, and then he started listing reasons why he was removing certain books from the schools. 

[StringJunky]

10 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

II think his stances may play well to the bumpkins who voted him in, but once he tries to go on the national stage he's going to have to back off on his extremism, and that's going to make him look weak.

I noticed in the mid-terms how the redder GOP members back-pedalled their stances, in contrast to their earlier ranting focussed on their base.

[iNow]

7 hours ago, CharonY said:

with rather unclear guidelines

Their guidelines are likely rather simple: Ban the books published by competitors of other book publishers who contribute the more to the DeSantis SuperPAC.

Fluffing the profits of megadonors is generally a safe bet / parsimonious explanation when we see these woke smokescreens being fanned. 

[Markus Hanke]

16 hours ago, CharonY said:

I am now wondering if folks have any thoughts or insights into how effective (and lawful) these tactics are going to be? 

I can’t really meaningfully comment since this isn’t my area of expertise. But I would like to offer a simple observation that may be relevant - I spent the first few years (up to the end of primary school) of my life in one of the former communist Eastern Bloc countries. Communist ideology was being drilled into people relentlessly and at all times, from kindergarten to primary, secondary and tertiary levels, as well as all public media etc. Outwardly, the vast majority of the populace toed the party line, shouted the right slogans, joined the right political committees, sang along with extra gusto when the national anthem was played, and so on. This is what ensured you were left alone, and could live a quiet life in relative comfort. But behind the scenes it was a different story - I can tell you for a fact that very few people actually genuinely believed all the nonsense the party tried to indoctrinate its citizen with. Nearly everyone we knew back then had hidden antennas in their attic to pick up western TV/radio; nearly everyone got clandestine “care packages” with well-concealed goods from relatives in the West; nearly everyone managed to get their hands on books that were technically blacklisted. It was pretty much an open secret. People outwardly played along out of fear, or simply in order to be left alone and live in comfort, but very few were “actual” fervent communists (though of course these did exist). In the end, how many genuine (=not organised by the party) mass protests were there in favour of keeping the Iron Curtain drawn shut? And that was before Internet and means of mass communication.

So what I would suggest is that just because people are exposed to attempts at indoctrination of some kind of another does not at all mean that they will actually pick up these doctrines and make them their personal belief systems. They might outwardly play along with them, but that’s not the same thing at all. We’re not just unthinking sponges that unquestioningly soak up everything we are confronted with - human beings are much more complex than that, and that’s true even at a young and impressionable age. I think that’s too often forgotten. Hence, especially in the age of the Internet and easy access to information, banning books from schools and library is a nonsensical and ineffective waste of time, in my opinion. I would conjecture that the influence of upbringing and general social environment is far greater than anything that might (or might not) be taught in schools.

[StringJunky]

As a wannabee president, he's got to disperse those policies across the country and sell it to swingers in blue states, given that the margins are now very fine due to historical gerrymandering. Elsewhere, I'm reading that people from his own party are just calling him, in effect, a Trump-clone. I'll be interested to see  if he backpedals some of his more rabid rantings as we get closer to 2024. Perhaps more red-leaning people will get sick to death of hearing about 'wokeness'... he's got to keep this up for two more years. I'm pretty sure Trump will do his best to bring him down as well.

In the wider view, you can't change the way people are, so policies that decry 'wokeness' can only be temporary in the long run. Seeing how the US coped with January 6th, I'm sure commonsense and humanity will prevail.

Edited March 17, 2023 by StringJunky

[iNow]

7 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

especially in the age of the Internet and easy access to information, banning books from schools and library is a nonsensical and ineffective waste of time

Indeed, but it sure whips up the base who actually show up to cast their ballots on Election Day. It’s a type of tribal signaling trying to simplify everything down into simple digestible concepts like “them bad” and “us good.” It plays on and plays up people’s fears about non-binary sexuality instead of extinguishing those anxieties through exposure to kind neighbors who identify as such. 

[CharonY]

7 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

I can’t really meaningfully comment since this isn’t my area of expertise. But I would like to offer a simple observation that may be relevant - I spent the first few years (up to the end of primary school) of my life in one of the former communist Eastern Bloc countries. Communist ideology was being drilled into people relentlessly and at all times, from kindergarten to primary, secondary and tertiary levels, as well as all public media etc. Outwardly, the vast majority of the populace toed the party line, shouted the right slogans, joined the right political committees, sang along with extra gusto when the national anthem was played, and so on. This is what ensured you were left alone, and could live a quiet life in relative comfort. But behind the scenes it was a different story - I can tell you for a fact that very few people actually genuinely believed all the nonsense the party tried to indoctrinate its citizen with. Nearly everyone we knew back then had hidden antennas in their attic to pick up western TV/radio; nearly everyone got clandestine “care packages” with well-concealed goods from relatives in the West; nearly everyone managed to get their hands on books that were technically blacklisted. It was pretty much an open secret. People outwardly played along out of fear, or simply in order to be left alone and live in comfort, but very few were “actual” fervent communists (though of course these did exist). In the end, how many genuine (=not organised by the party) mass protests were there in favour of keeping the Iron Curtain drawn shut? And that was before Internet and means of mass communication.

So what I would suggest is that just because people are exposed to attempts at indoctrination of some kind of another does not at all mean that they will actually pick up these doctrines and make them their personal belief systems. They might outwardly play along with them, but that’s not the same thing at all. We’re not just unthinking sponges that unquestioningly soak up everything we are confronted with - human beings are much more complex than that, and that’s true even at a young and impressionable age. I think that’s too often forgotten. Hence, especially in the age of the Internet and easy access to information, banning books from schools and library is a nonsensical and ineffective waste of time, in my opinion. I would conjecture that the influence of upbringing and general social environment is far greater than anything that might (or might not) be taught in schools.

Thank you for that. Now I have the idea of Florida as a kind of porous East Germany in my mind. I doubt that control will be anywhere near that level, but at the same time I think it will galvanize a certain subset of folks who want to believe (like the hardcore communists in the East Bloc). And following iNow's line of thinking it is likely more about getting folks emotionally riled up to show up to elections (especially local ones, I would guess). But I do like the change in perspective inasmuch that even a fully authoritarian government can only do so much to brainwash folks.

And to be fair, facebook is probably doing the heavy lifting here.

[Phi for All]

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

In the wider view, you can't change the way people are, so policies that decry 'wokeness' can only be temporary in the long run. Seeing how the US coped with January 6th, I'm sure commonsense and humanity will prevail.

Honestly, I don't think most people "are" the way we think in the US. Most of our sources of news are entertainment based, and talk about big issues using simple words that can be interpreted differently by everyone who hears them. Both sides hear the same words, but one side interprets them as "book banning" and the other side reads it as "protect the children", so both sides think the other guys are inhuman and have ZERO common sense.

[StringJunky]

2 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Honestly, I don't think most people "are" the way we think in the US. Most of our sources of news are entertainment based, and talk about big issues using simple words that can be interpreted differently by everyone who hears them. Both sides hear the same words, but one side interprets them as "book banning" and the other side reads it as "protect the children", so both sides think the other guys are inhuman and have ZERO common sense.

The other thing is as well, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

[Phi for All]

19 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

The other thing is as well, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

So true, and so unfortunate considering how loudly extremists squeak. 

[TheVat]

And rather similar to the drag-panic going on in the US.  Take something that's not a threat, concoct a strawman bogeyman that sounds like one, then just repeat and virally replicate ad infinitum.  Soundbites against "woke" that are of the form "they will teach your children to hate themselves and their own white heritage," are the same dishonest formulation as the drag-panic soundbites like "they will expose your children to deviant adult sexuality."  

What a bunch of snowflakes.  

[StringJunky]

25 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

So true, and so unfortunate considering how loudly extremists squeak. 

I don't know why, but this saying came up in my mind: "Poise is the art of raising the eyebrows and not the roof."

[CharonY]

 

20 minutes ago, TheVat said:

And rather similar to the drag-panic going on in the US.  Take something that's not a threat, concoct a strawman bogeyman that sounds like one, then just repeat and virally replicate ad infinitum.  Soundbites against "woke" that are of the form "they will teach your children to hate themselves and their own white heritage," are the same dishonest formulation as the drag-panic soundbites like "they will expose your children to deviant adult sexuality."  

What a bunch of snowflakes.  

What I find fascinating is that the tactics of creating these alternate realities is straight up from Goebbel's strategy book. And this includes terms and tactics like isolating folks from "mainstream media (Luegenpresse)", rile against social Marxism (whatever that is) and so on. There is barely a change in wording. It is so weird that with all the knowledge of our past, we collectively forget things just like that.

 

[Phi for All]

23 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

I don't know why, but this saying came up in my mind: "Poise is the art of raising the eyebrows and not the roof."

Ooooh, I like that! The US has moved away from the extended family and focused on the nuclear family, which is stretched to the point of exhaustion, doesn't have enough bodies to deal with all the problems of modern life, and lives isolated from the help it often needs. Elders don't get to pass on their wisdom or  warn us about dangers in the past on a regular basis. I think many folks were raised without the wisdom of grandparents, aunts, and uncles living in the same house, and now we have a couple of generations who lack poise and feel their issues require raising the roof. 

Grandma would have explained the situation before letting you out of the house with such bizarre ideas. "You want to ban a math text because it references 'social awareness'? Sit your butt down and let me tell you what being aware is all about."

[iNow]

7 hours ago, CharonY said:

Now I have the idea of Florida as a kind of porous East Germany in my mind.

I also have been recollecting the split between east and west Germany given the recent experiences across the US. Feels a lot like that, at least the mindsets.

The right like to use the phrase “national divorce” because it sounds more palatable than “civil war” or secession, but don’t seem to realize just how very much red states rely on blue states to fund them. 

7 hours ago, CharonY said:

And to be fair, facebook is probably doing the heavy lifting here.

Twitter, WhatsApp, TikTok, and related others even more so. 

7 hours ago, TheVat said:

And rather similar to the drag-panic going on in the US.  Take something that's not a threat, concoct a strawman bogeyman that sounds like one, then just repeat and virally replicate ad infinitum.  Soundbites against "woke" that are of the form "they will teach your children to hate themselves and their own white heritage," are the same dishonest formulation as the drag-panic soundbites like "they will expose your children to deviant adult sexuality."  

What a bunch of snowflakes.  

Couldn’t agree more with all of this, but it’s also turning into legislation. A bill to ban transgender people from the bathroom most closely aligned with their identity is now on my governors desk awaiting signature (if not signed already). 

Edited March 18, 2023 by iNow

[CharonY]

2 hours ago, iNow said:

Twitter, WhatsApp, TikTok, and related others even more so. 

Psst. I am old. I probably would have added myspace, too.

[iNow]

Lol. You and me, both. I had to fire up Netscape to search those names on AltaVista. 

[npts2020]

On 3/17/2023 at 10:57 AM, StringJunky said:

As a wannabee president, he's got to disperse those policies across the country and sell it to swingers in blue states, given that the margins are now very fine due to historical gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering really isn't as relevant in Presidential elections since it goes by total votes in the state and not the precinct those votes come from, that's why Republicans never seem to win the popular vote for President

[iNow]

40 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

Gerrymandering really isn't as relevant in Presidential elections since it goes by total votes in the state and not the precinct those votes come from

It actually goes by electoral college votes in Maine and Nebraska, neither of which are winner take all stages, and thus districts there are extremely relevant, so be cautious speaking in absolutes. 
 

40 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

that's why Republicans never seem to win the popular vote for President

And here I thought it was because they were less popular, push hardest for policies the majority generally oppose, and keep appealing to old uneducated white men plus the most extreme and marginal parts of their base… seemingly without concern about alienating moderate and otherwise independent voters who might be enticed to their side. 

They lost by 5.8M in ‘92 and again by 8.2M votes to Bill Clinton in ‘96, by 540K votes to Al Gore in 2000, by 9.5M then also again by 5M a second time to Barack Obama, by almost 3M to Hillary Clinton, and again by 7M votes to Joe Biden. 

Only time Republicans have actually won the popular vote across the last three+ decades is that ONE time when Bush beat Kerry by 3M in 2004, largely due to a country trying to unify behind the Iraq war post 9-11.

Edited March 19, 2023 by iNow

[npts2020]

23 hours ago, iNow said:

Gerrymandering really isn't as relevant...

^^^ I fail to see what is absolute about this.

23 hours ago, iNow said:

It actually goes by electoral college votes in Maine and Nebraska, neither of which are winner take all stages, and thus districts there are extremely relevant, so be cautious speaking in absolutes.

Maine (4) and Nebraska (5) combine for a total of 9 of the 538 Electoral College votes so could possibly have a 4 vote difference from winner-take-all, not enough to have affected the outcome of any Presidential election in history (even in 2000, a 5 vote difference because Maine went for Gore and Nebraska went for Bush).

Edited March 20, 2023 by npts2020
wrong information

[iNow]

40 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

^ I fail to see what is absolute about this.

Likely bc that’s not the part to which I was responding