Posted September 6, 2013, by Mary Grabar: The Dissident Prof has been traveling. Calendar events are posted at the updated Mary Grabar site. Please keep checking (and invite the Dissident Prof to speak to your group).
First, was a delightful event on August 18 at the home of Nancy Griffin, who hosted her and Tina Trent speaking about radicals in education, along with Maryland Congressional candidate and former distinguished Secret Service agent, Dan Bongino. In Washington, D.C., on August 20, she presented her report on the "The Crisis in American Journalism and the Conservative Response" along with co-author Tina Trent. Cliff Kincaid began the conference with a powerful presentation on the launch of Al Jazeera America, which happened the very same day in our nation's capital (covered by Newsmax). Grove City College Professor and Dissident Prof friend Paul Kengor spoke on his report All the Dupes Fit to Print: Journalists Who Have Served as Tools of Communist Propaganda. New Zealand blogger and researcher Trevor Loudon ended with a resounding warning about "The Enemies Within: Communists, Socialists, and Progressives in the United States Congress," also the title of his new book. Trevor is touring Florida now, but will be in Georgia mid-September. Check this site or his for details. His book is a valuable, well-documented resource and he is a dynamic speaker.
Then it was south to Valdosta and Orlando. Tina Trent and I enjoyed the very warm hospitality of Nolen and Diane Cox, founders of the Valdosta Tea Party. These patriots seem to have limitless energy. We had a packed room and many great questions and comments from a very informed group to our presentation, "From Riots in the Streets to the Takeover of Education: 45 Years of the Weather Underground's War Against America." It was bittersweet, for we thought we'd be touring with Larry Grathwohl, Vietnam War hero and Weather Underground informant. Tina discussed the progress up the academic ladder the terrorists have made and Larry's book, Bringing Down America. I talked about Bill Ayers and the radical influence on Common Core. Coincidentally, the same day, Atlanta's "alternative weekly," Creative Loafing published "Why Common Core's collapse hurts Georgia's students" by Charlie Harper.
Dissident Prof is dissapointed that Mr. Harper did not give her due credit for linking Common Core to Bill Ayers and his radical colleagues, like Linda Darling-Hammond, instead crediting Glenn Beck with "the hard right's stance by labeling Common Core as an indoctrination 'with extreme leftist ideology.'" (See my report for Accuracy in Media, "Terrorist Professor Bill Ayers and Obama's Federal School Curriculum," published well before Glenn Beck started discussing Common Core.)
Harper then goes on to write, "The message spread, often through different social media networks, and contained misinformation and incomplete facts rather than objective analysis or critique."
He never does describe what the "misinformation" is, and thereby shares the same strategy of Republican Common Core salesmen, most of whom have never spent a day teaching.
Curiously, Harper then critiques the rift in the Republican Party over Common Core in Georgia:
The [Republican] party's disagreement on the issue has led to a semi-public feud between [Governor] Deal and [School Superintendant] Barge, with the superintendent now in full retreat from Common Core standards. Meanwhile, Deal is struggling to find the proper assurances that other former Republican governors such as Sonny Perdue, Mike Huckabee, and Jeb Bush weren't simply fronting for education theorist Bill Ayers and President Barack Obama when Common Core's standards were originally developed and implemented. Deal is, after all, a man simultaneously being criticized by one primary opponent for not attracting enough high-tech jobs while also not capitulating to a wing of his party that believes evolution is a lie "from the pit of hell." And the cognitive dissonance of these two critical positions from the Governor's opponents should not be lost in this argument. Georgia will never attract high-wage information-based jobs if it adopts a public posture that's anti-education or anti-science.
Again, no evidence is presented about how opposition to Common Core is "anti-education or anti-science." To the contrary, as described in these pages and many, many other places, Common Core's aim is to end the "achievement gap," and make everyone "college- and career-ready." Thanks to dedicated teachers and activists, conservatives have quickly grasped the reality of this national power grab, as evidenced by the resounding applause and cheers that greeted every denouncement of Common Core at the Americans for Prosperity "Defending the Dream Summit" in Orlando Labor Day weekend. (Watch Frontpage Magazine's pages for my article on Marco Rubio's reception.) This composition teacher asks that Mr. Harper give support for his claims.
Alas, the Dissident Prof is not teaching this semester, but has more time for speaking, including an upcoming visit on September 24 to Lee University. She'll be speaking on "An American Education: An Immigrant's Perspective." It's about how education is changing the American character.
Speaking of immigrants, she's happy to see Exiled: Stories from Conservative and Moderate Professors Who Have Been Ridiculed, Ostracized, Marginalized, Demonized, and Frozen Out reviewed in the pages of Sarmatian Review, edited by Dissident Prof ally, Rice University Slavic Studies professor Ewa Thompson. To quote from the review, "It takes courage and pluck to dare to speak about such issues in public since complaints about discrimination [against non-Marxists and politically incorrect minorities]. . . are frowned upon in American academia." Support Sarmatian Review and subscribe. Read other worthy articles about issues involving Eastern Europe that you will not see elsewhere here.
Warnings come from New Zealand and Eastern Europe. Americans take note! Resist the re-education of America!
Correction: September 9, 2013: made in a couple of the spellings of Sarmatian Review, the scholarly journal on Central and Eastern Europe, especially Poland. It is named after Sarmatia, the legendary area of Eastern Europe.
