Which do we live in? Apparently, according to the Texas state standards for social studies content taught in the classroom, or TEKS, we no longer live in a democratic society. It’s a constitutional republic. The word “democratic” has been scrubbed from much of the TEKS, to be replaced by the word “republic.” The partisanship behind this change is obvious. And while students still need to “analyze and evaluate the validity of… information… for bias, propaganda, point of view, and frame of reference”, every previous mention of “propaganda” has been struck from the TEKS. Are we to apply the study of propaganda to the TEKS themselves, then?

Given that the TEKS ask that we study the “leadership” of Nixon and Reagan and only the impeachment of Clinton, I think there are grounds to view the TEKS as a platform for right-wing propaganda. In them, America was never imperialistic and McCarthy was spot on in his witch-hunt… even though Americans previously decried our imperialistic adventures and the Venona documents show that McCarthy was dead wrong about most of his charges.

My biggest question is if I have to teach that we have always been at war with Eastasia or that we have always been at war with Eurasia.