Is the Holocaust fake news? You decide!

[MeDotOrg]

From the Dallas Morning News:

A Southlake Carroll schools leader recently told teachers that, should they have a book about the Holocaust in their classroom, they should also have materials that show an “opposing” perspective, NBC News reported.

The news outlet -- which has chronicled the deeply divisive fight in Southlake over how to teach race and racism in schools -- obtained an audio recording from a district meeting that included discussions about how to comply with a new Texas law, which lawmakers say was intended to bar “critical race theory” from classrooms.

From the start, educators vehemently opposed the bill, saying it was vague and would have a chilling effect on their ability to have honest conversations about America’s past and present.

The new law -- similar to ones passed in other conservative states -- lists several broad topics that can’t be discussed and sets guidelines for talking about “controversial” subjects. It comes as conservative pundits and politicians have conflated critical race theory with schools’ diversity and inclusion efforts and anti-racism training, among other ideas.

“Just try to remember the concepts of [House Bill] 3979,” Gina Peddy, a Carroll administrator, said in the recording obtained by NBC News. “And make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust, that you have one that has an opposing, that has other perspectives.”

A teacher responded: “How do you oppose the Holocaust?”

The author of a similar Senate bill, Sen. Bryan Hughes, denied that this was a proper interpretation of the new law.

State Sen. Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills, wrote on Twitter that “Southlake just got it wrong.”

“School administrators should know the difference between factual historical events and fiction,” Hancock wrote. “No legislation is suggesting the action this administrator is promoting.”

A district spokeswoman did not immediately return a call requesting comment. In a statement to NBC News, Karen Fitzgerald said the district “recognizes that all Texas teachers are in a precarious position with the latest legal requirements.”

“Our purpose is to support our teachers in ensuring they have all of the professional development, resources and materials needed. Our district has not and will not mandate books be removed nor will we mandate that classroom libraries be unavailable,” she said.

The comments stirred outrage. Texas Democratic Party Co-Executive Director Hannah Roe Beck condemned actions she called “terrifying.”

“We’re seeing books banned, educators reprimanded for teaching authentic history, and kids deprived of their right to learn about the world they’re growing up in,” she said in a statement. “Texas Republicans are censoring education to pander to rightwing extremists -- and putting Texas families and kids in danger while they do.”

There seems to be a weird love/hate relationship between the conservative right and Jews. On the one hand, some on the religious right see the boundaries of the State of Israel being necessary to setting the table for the second coming of Christ. On the other hand, the more fascistic side wants you to think the holocaust was...fake news?

[Chap]

I'd be delighted to find that the murder of 6 million European Jews by Germany under Hitler was fake news! That way there would be a lot more people related to me than I thought there were (my family is complicated, but in a good way).

Only one problem, though. Why haven't we been getting Jewish New Year cards from those people for years and years? Maybe it was something we said?

[MeDotOrg]

I have a friend whose mother was tattooed at Auschwitz. I don't think it was a fashion statement.

When George Dubya Bush was President, there was a joke that if Bush said the world was flat, the headline on Fox would be:

SHAPE OF THE WORLD: OPINIONS DIFFER

Opinions may differ, but facts do not. Presenting the holocaust as a debatable point in history is re-writing history. I would really like to know who is behind the specific language of this bill.

[Some Schmo]

They are borrowing the idiotic argument people have been making for years that if you teach evolution in school, you also have to teach intelligent design.

It's laughable that right-wingers are upset the left suppresses speech. The right wants to suppress all speech (especially spoken facts) that doesn't comport with their BS.

[Gadianton]

There seems to be a weird love/hate relationship between the conservative right and Jews. On the one hand, some on the religious right see the boundaries of the State of Israel being necessary to setting the table for the second coming of Christ. On the other hand, the more fascistic side wants you to think the holocaust was...fake news?

I think this reflects the tension between traditional white, church-going conservativism and far-right, irreligious shock-value conservativism inventing itself on the gray web. It's the twenty-somethings posting memes on 4-chan from their parents' basements who are the real innovative thinkers. I don't think all these kids are traditional anti-Semites. I think that they latch on to sensitive topics in what is effectively a contest to be the most outrageous. But that all sort of ends up working together with the people who really are neo-Nazis and puts pressure on your typical right-wing Christian.

I mean, if your mantra is that mainstream media and science is a pack of lies, and proving itself out in all these other contexts, from vaccines to global warming, to evolution and pot, then why shouldn't our history books be equally questionable?

[Chap]

They are borrowing the idiotic argument people have been making for years that if you teach evolution in school, you also have to teach intelligent design.

Once you stop going with the scientific consensus, it is hard to see why the "intelligent design" version of "my favourite deity (meaning the Abrahamic one) did it" should be the only alternative taught.

There are a very large number of alternative deity centred cosmogonies, and some that don't depend on deities at all, like for instance the ancient Chinese account of the original undifferentiated Supreme Pole that first separates into yin and yang, and so on, until the full order of the world we see around us has unfolded, with everything happening naturally without any divine entity having to make it happen. Why should not that get taught as well? If you like a bit more action, you can have Babylonian Marduk vanquishing Ti'amat, the ancient personification of darkness and chaos, and splitting her body into two halves to separate the waters below and above earth and sky. And so on ... There are a huge number of candidates to consider, once you get started.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I’ll have to hop on /pol/ to see what their theories are - they kind of bounce around from what the camps ‘actually’ were, to inflating numbers, to stating supply lines collapsing causing most of the deaths.

eta: Ok. If anyone wants to ferret out their holocaust conspiracies you can to 4chan/pol/, click on archives, and then in your browser click ‘find in page …”, and search ‘holocaust’ and you can just arrow down to any number of threads. All /pol/ content is NSFW.

eta2 - removed at Chap’s request

- Doc

[Chap]

Might you consider just posting links and brief descriptions instead of posting this sickening stuff on the page? That diminishes the chance that some moron visiting the board will read it and think "Wow! I never knew that", and then put it on his Facebook page.

Frankly, just scrolling past it is more than I want to have to do. I know that crap is out there somewhere, and I'd prefer it to stay there.

[ajax18]

I mean, if your mantra is that mainstream media and science is a pack of lies

The mainstream media is a partisan Democrat propaganda outlet. Even Lancet can only publish what is politically correct. And they are teaching critical race theory in schools. They've just simplified it to a point that you can't call it critical race theory. White children have been taught to be ashamed of their racial heritage since I was in school. Thankfully this effort has largely been a failure.

[canpakes]

And they are teaching critical race theory in schools. They've just simplified it to a point that you can't call it critical race theory.

The Holocaust isn’t critical race theory.

White children have been taught to be ashamed of their racial heritage since I was in school. Thankfully this effort has largely been a failure.

I’m pretty sure that it’s possible to teach that rounding up and killing 6 million folks because of their religious affiliation is a bad thing without you misinterpreting that lesson as a white pride issue.