Confronting ignorance in the 21st century. [View all]

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2023/07/confronting-ignorance-in-twenty-first.html

Wars have been fought, in this country and around the world, attempting to rid the world of this kind of bigotry and ignorance. We succeeded in eliminating slavery, finally, after the Civil War, though we have not yet rid the county of the residue of bigotry and racism that still persists and now seems to get worse with time. We fought two major world wars to help rid the world of the injustice of imperialism and the oppression and torture of fascism. But there is a growing fascist movement now within the United States that seems to be advocating even more severe hatred than the European variety did in the first half of the 20th century.

Is it too much of a leap to go from the sermon of an old man who is steeped in racial bigotry to the growing threat of anti-democratic fascism found in several forms in this country in the 20th century? I don't think so. The bottom line here is that he said it, and among the constituency in which he was preaching, it didn't really create much of a stir, until the media called them out. If this had not appeared in the local daily newspaper, and The Daily Beast, would the church have issued a denial anyway? I seriously doubt it.

**snip**

Education defeats ignorance, but in this country, the dubious quality and effectiveness of our whole educational system when it comes to social studies of just about any kind, makes its success against bad ideology questionable at best. We have to continue calling this out, identifying it, pointing out not only its ideological flaws, but where its dominance will lead to oppression if they ever gain control of government. Is that enough to motivate people to do a little research into the candidates that run for office and go cast a ballot for freedom? It should be more than enough.