Louisiana Voice

If Ray Garofolo (R-Chalmette) and others of his ilk have their way, Louisiana public schools will soon be teaching Grimm’s Fairy Tales in social studies classes that once touched on the real history of this country.

And while they’re at it, they may as well bring back the House Unamerican Activities Committee’s sixties-era propaganda film Operation Abolition and the classic Reefer Madness.

The latter is a classic camp film about the (inaccurate) potential of marijuana to induce acts of violence in its users, a film of which most people have at least a passing knowledge. Operation Abolition, on the other hand, may not be as familiar to younger readers. Basically, it was the product of the anti-communist fervor that swept the country, a fervor fueled by the alcoholic mind of Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Wisconsin). And it was part of the old “Americanism vs. Communism” non-credit class that the Louisiana Legislature mandated in its hysteria as a requirement for high school graduation back in the early 1960s.

It was propaganda then and what Garofolo is advocating is propaganda now.

Donald Trump loves to toss about the term “witch hunt,” and that two-word catch-phrase was never more appropriate than during the actual Salem witch trials or later, during the red-baiting days that saw Hollywood actors black-listed for their political persuasions. Thanks to the likes of Ronald Reagan and John Wayne, anyone with a modicum of sympathy for the poor, gays, the working class, minorities, or even women, was automatically considered to be a communist sympathizer and was ostracized accordingly, their careers and lives ruined.

That, in essence is what Garofolo and his Republican cohorts in the Louisiana Legislature are attempting to do now. They want to return to the sterile era of Doris Day and Roy Rogers, to the days where the nation’s gravest concern was Nixon’s dog Checkers.

What’s wrong with Doris Day, you say? Nothing, except in those movies, she apparently had a thing for Rock Hudson. Let’s see Garofolo square that one up with his agenda.

Let’s eliminate all teaching about the Civil War, how the West was really settled, the Trail of Tears, women’s suffrage, the Great Depression (after all, the business of America is business – Herbert Hoover said so), and the civil rights struggle.

Those are negative guilt trips. Garofolo said so himself: “There is no reason to make students feel guilty,” he proclaimed last month. “That is exactly what we are hearing today. We should teach the good things about this country.”

Well, Rep. Garofolo, that is exactly what they do in North Korea. Nothing but “good things” are taught about Dear Leader there. Likewise, you’d be hard-pressed to find critical teachings in Russia or China or in Islamic states or in most Latin American countries. Funny thing is, in those countries, we call it propaganda or brain-washing. Garofolo wants to call it social studies here.

I’m not advocating that we teach only the negative aspects of our history; quite the contrary. I’m suggesting that we paint an accurate portrait of our country when we teach its history, and not gloss over inconvenient facts simply because they are…well, inconvenient. We can be supportive of our country and still hold our leaders accountable.

Instead of portraying Charles Lindbergh as a hero who could fly an airplane across the Atlantic, we should let kids know that he was also a Nazi sympathizer, as was Joseph Kennedy, in the lead-up to WWII. Why not let students know that the American West was won through our own unique form of genocide carried out against Native Americans? And when we didn’t complete the job, we stuck them on barren reservations?

Andrew Jackson delayed the Civil War by preventing South Carolina from seceding long before Lincoln arrived on the scene but his treatment of Native Americans far overshadowed any of his other accomplishments.

Teddy Roosevelt was a great conservationist and was credited with breaking up big trusts and championing consumers and the working class, but he also had a huge ego and was something of a warmonger.

It’s not pretty, but it’s a fact that Article I, Section 2 or our very own Constitution proclaimed that blacks were considered three-fifths of a citizen of a country where “all men” were otherwise “created equal.”

Garofolo obviously prefers that students not know that shameful part of America’s legacy which said it was just fine to “own” another human being, that the slaughter of millions of Native Americans was somehow justified, that women were denied the right to vote until the 20^th century, that maybe this country should not be interfering in elections or encouraging revolutions in other countries (much as I despise him, Trump was right about that last one).

“My country, right or wrong” is not the lesson we should be teaching our young people.

Winston Churchill, in paraphrasing Spanish philosopher George Santayana, said, “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”

Garofolo not only has learned little from our history but he now wants to completely redact it.