UK

Amazon strike shows the power of the picket line

Workers at Amazon’s site in Coventry are joining the GMB union on the picket line


Amazon workers on the picket line on Tuesday (Picture: Sean Leahy)

By Andy Pettit

SOCIALIST WORKER
Wednesday 14 February 2024

Hundreds of Amazon workers joined big picket lines outside the BHX4 fulfilment centre in Coventry on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Around 400 striking GMB union members held up workers going into the Coventry Amazon depot for more than half an hour on Tuesday. They tried to convince them not to cross the picket line.

Amazon worker Darren Westwood tweeted on Tuesday, “Amazon BHX4 is out again. As Amazon boss Jeff Bezos sells two billion dollars worth of Amazon stock, we are asking for £15 an hour. Every worker should be getting this as a minimum. “

On the second day of the three day strike, workers chanted, “No work today,” and, “What do we want? —£15.” And workers continue to join the union on the picket lines. Since the summer of 2022, over 1,000 have joined the GMB union at BHX4.

The company’s internal online bulletin board is bombarded with messages from workers supporting the union with links to join, usually deleted by admins within minutes. Management is doing everything to try to break the strikes—such as bringing in new starters.

But many of these new starters joined the GMB—and are now among the most enthusiastic pickets.

Amazon is also trying to convince workers that they would be better off not joining the union. In an email sent to staff by the managers, Amazon claimed, “Union recognition may mean that BHX4 employees will not automatically see pay increases offered at other sites, as they would be subject to further negotiations.

Management is trying to bribe workers to cross the picket line with a pathetic offer of a £2.50 voucher to spend in the canteen. That’s barely enough for a coffee.

The company pretends to ignore the union but pay has increased from £10.15 to £12.50, already a rise of 23 per cent. These strikes are working, and more are needed.

Workers at other Amazon fulfilment centres also need to join the action. Last month, workers at the newly-opened Minworth site near Birmingham went on strike for the first time.

Several Coventry Amazon workers joined their picket lines to offer support and solidarity. Much more of this is needed for Amazon workers across Britain to win.

Romanian classrooms face hidden Holocaust history

THE IRON GUARD CONDUCTED 

ANTI-ROMA POGROM TOO

Agence France-Presse
February 14, 2024 

Romania has introduced classes on Jewish history and the Holocaust (Daniel MIHAILESCU/AFP)

Debating eagerly in their classroom, Romanian teacher Gabriela Obodariu's pupils faced up to a hard question: if horrors like the Holocaust were to happen in their time, what part would they play?

Under the fascist regime that ruled their country, allied with the Nazis, would they have been bystanders, resistance fighters -- or torturers?

Romania killed hundreds of thousands of Jews during World War II, yet polls show that awareness of those atrocities today is extremely low. The lesson is part of a national drive to fix that.

"Such horrors didn't stop and won't stop," Obodariu, 56, told her students in the eastern city of Focsani.

Hers was part of a program of weekly classes on Jewish history and the Holocaust introduced into the curriculum in high schools all over Romania in September.

With far-right parties now gaining ground as elsewhere in Europe, data from authorities have indicated a rise in anti-Semitic incidents in Romania in recent years.

The General Prosecutor's Office recorded 51 anti-Semitic offenses -- including the promotion of fascist symbols -- in 2022, compared with six in 2012.

Obodariu said the classes are important for "fostering values" among her students -- some of whom will get to vote for the first time in national elections later this year.

One of her pupils, David Cartas, 17, said the lesson "can teach us a lot about the racism that exists in the world right now".

"Previously I might have even joked about it (the Holocaust). Now I definitely won't."

- 'Like a vaccine' -

An ally of Nazi Germany until 1944, Romania had Europe's third biggest Jewish population before the war at 800,000. Now there are only some 3,000.

During the war, up to 380,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews were killed in areas controlled by the regime of Ion Antonescu, while others were forced to flee.

A museum about a massacre of Jews in the city of Iasi, north of Focsani, opened in 2021. Part of a vast cemetery in the town bears witness to the 1941 pogrom.

Yet in a survey late last year by the country's Elie Wiesel Institute, only 11 percent of 1,300 people questioned said the Holocaust happened in Romania, while 85 percent pointed to Germany or other European countries.

"It is a part of history that is not well known," the institute's director Alexandru Florian told AFP.

"It hasn't yet reached all levels of society, the grassroots, the ordinary citizen."

To teach the classes, history teachers rely on guidelines from the education ministry that evoke the danger posed to democracy by "the resurgence of anti-Semitism and radical neo-fascist political movements" in recent years.

A full manual for the classes is expected later this year.

These classes "are like a vaccine. They create antibodies in the young population to this extremely harmful and dangerous virus" of anti-Semitism, said sociologist and Holocaust researcher Mihai Dinu Gheorghiu.

- 'Dark sides of history' -

In the Elie Wiesel survey, 52 percent of those polled disagreed with the decision to make the classes compulsory.

Ahead of this year's elections, the ultra-nationalist opposition party AUR has been gaining in opinion surveys.

Entering parliament after the 2020 elections, when it scored nine percent of the vote, it currently polls at just under 20 percent in surveys for the European Parliament elections in June.

The current AUR leader George Simion has acknowledged Romania's responsibility for the Holocaust of the Romanian Jews and condemned anti-Semitism.

But in 2022, the party described the history of the Holocaust as a "minor issue", criticizing the intention to introduce it in the school curriculum.

In January, some right-wing extremist movements also complained that Jewish history was introduced to the detriment of the study of Romanian history and called for the Elie Wiesel Institute to be closed down.

Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said in October the lessons were important because a democracy must face up to "the dark sides of history" and the question of who was responsible.

In Obodariu's class in Focsani, student Sabrina Pavlov, 17, said the lessons made her realize the "horrors of the past".

"Let's not repeat that mistake," she said.

En.wikipedia.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Guard

Iron Guard - Wikipedia 

In March 1930, Codreanu formed the "Iron Guard" (Romanian: Garda de Fier) as a paramilitary political branch of the Legion; this name eventually came to refer ...

Britannica.com

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iron-Guard

Iron Guard | Fascist Movement, Antisemitism & Nationalis... 

Feb 2, 2024 ... Iron Guard, Romanian fascist organization that constituted a major social and political force between 1930 and 1941.

Slate.com

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/02/romanias-unusually-morbid-fascist-movement-blended-nationalistic-violence-with-fanatical-christian-martyrdom.html

Romania's unusually morbid fascist movement blended nati... 

Feb 21, 2017 ... In 1930, it founded a sort of militia called the Iron Guard, to include all Legionnaires between the ages of 18 and 30, and managed to win two ...

En.wikipedia.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corneliu_Zelea_Codreanu

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu - Wikipedia 

Generally seen as the main variety of local fascism, and noted for its mystical and Romanian Orthodox-inspired revolutionary message, Iron Guard gained ...

Study.com

https://study.com/academy/lesson/iron-guard-origin-history-romania.html

Iron Guard | History, Features & Significance - Study.co... 

Jan 26, 2023 ... Codreanu was a far-right Romanian politician who was an anti-communist ultranationalist. In March 1930, Codreanu created the Iron Guard, the ...

Tandfonline.com

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1469076042000312203

The sacralised politics of the Romanian Iron Guard 

Romania's most important fascist movement, the Legion of Archangel Michael (also called the Iron Guard), willingly inserted strong elements of Orthodox ...

Oxfordreference.com

https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100011317

Iron Guard - Oxford Reference 

Quick Reference. A Romanian Fascist movement. Its name was used from 1930 for the Fascist League of the Archangel Michael, founded in 1927 by Cornelieu Zelca ...

Encyclopedia.com

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/iron-guard

Iron Guard | Encyclopedia.com 

IRON GUARDIRON GUARD , right-wing, antisemitic movement and party in Romania. In 1927 nationalist students, headed by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, ...

Yadvashem.org

https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%206332.pdf

Iron Guard - Yad Vashem 

Originally established in 1927 under the name "Legion of the Archangel. Michael" and organized into paramilitary units, the Iron Guard soon became a mass ...

Brill.com

https://brill.com/view/journals/fasc/1/2/article-p65_1.xml?language=en

The Iron Guard and the 'Modern State'. Iron Guard Le... 

Historians and literary scholars still working in a Cold War paradigm cast Romanian Fascism as a form of reactionary resistance to liberal modernity, ...

Several companies are testing brain implants – why so much attention around Neuralink

The Conversation
February 14, 2024 

Brain

Putting a computer inside someone’s brain used to feel like the edge of science fiction. Today, it’s a reality. Academic and commercial groups are testing “brain-computer interface” devices to enable people with disabilities to function more independently. Yet Elon Musk’s company, Neuralink, has put this technology front and center in debates about safety, ethics and neuroscience.

In January 2024, Musk announced that Neuralink implanted its first chip in a human subject’s brain. The Conversation reached out to two scholars at the University of Washington School of Medicine – Nancy Jecker, a bioethicst, and Andrew Ko, a neurosurgeon who implants brain chip devices – for their thoughts on the ethics of this new horizon in neuroscience.

How does a brain chip work?

Neuralink’s coin-size device, called N1, is designed to enable patients to carry out actions just by concentrating on them, without moving their bodies.

Subjects in the company’s PRIME study – short for Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface – undergo surgery to place the device in a part of the brain that controls movement. The chip records and processes the brain’s electrical activity, then transmits this data to an external device, such as a phone or computer.

The external device “decodes” the patient’s brain activity, learning to associate certain patterns with the patient’s goal: moving a computer cursor up a screen, for example. Over time, the software can recognize a pattern of neural firing that consistently occurs while the participant is imagining that task, and then execute the task for the person.

Neuralink’s current trial is focused on helping people with paralyzed limbs control computers or smartphones. Brain-computer interfaces, commonly called BCIs, can also be used to control devices such as wheelchairs.

A few companies are testing BCIs. What’s different about Neuralink?

Noninvasive devices positioned on the outside of a person’s head have been used in clinical trials for a long time, but they have not received approval from the Food and Drug Administration for commercial development.


A visitor experiences a BCI system during the 2023 China International Fair for Trade in Services in Beijing. Li Xin/Xinhua via Getty Images

There are other brain-computer devices, like Neuralink’s, that are fully implanted and wireless. However, the N1 implant combines more technologies in a single device: It can target individual neurons, record from thousands of sites in the brain and recharge its small battery wirelessly. These are important advances that could produce better outcomes.

Why is Neuralink drawing criticism?

Neuralink received FDA approval for human trials in May 2023. Musk announced the company’s first human trial on his social media platform, X – formerly Twitter – in January 2024.

Information about the implant, however, is scarce, aside from a brochure aimed at recruiting trial subjects. Neuralink did not register at ClinicalTrials.gov, as is customary, and required by some academic journals.

Some scientists are troubled by this lack of transparency. Sharing information about clinical trials is important because it helps other investigators learn about areas related to their research and can improve patient care. Academic journals can also be biased toward positive results, preventing researchers from learning from unsuccessful experiments.

Fellows at the Hastings Center, a bioethics think tank, have warned that Musk’s brand of “science by press release, while increasingly common, is not science.” They advise against relying on someone with a huge financial stake in a research outcome to function as the sole source of information.

When scientific research is funded by government agencies or philanthropic groups, its aim is to promote the public good. Neuralink, on the other hand, embodies a private equity model, which is becoming more common in science. Firms pooling funds from private investors to back science breakthroughs may strive to do good, but they also strive to maximize profits, which can conflict with patients’ best interests.


Neuralink’s first human implant was announced on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, in January 2024. NurPhoto via Getty Images

In 2022, the U.S. Department of Agriculture investigated animal cruelty at Neuralink, according to a Reuters report, after employees accused the company of rushing tests and botching procedures on test animals in a race for results. The agency’s inspection found no breaches, according to a letter from the USDA secretary to lawmakers, which Reuters reviewed. However, the secretary did note an “adverse surgical event” in 2019 that Neuralink had self-reported.

In a separate incident also reported by Reuters, the Department of Transportation fined Neuralink for violating rules about transporting hazardous materials, including a flammable liquid.

What other ethical issues does Neuralink’s trial raise?

When brain-computer interfaces are used to help patients who suffer from disabling conditions function more independently, such as by helping them communicate or move about, this can profoundly improve their quality of life. In particular, it helps people recover a sense of their own agency or autonomy – one of the key tenets of medical ethics.

However well-intentioned, medical interventions can produce unintended consequences. With BCIs, scientists and ethicists are particularly concerned about the potential for identity theft, password hacking and blackmail. Given how the devices access users’ thoughts, there is also the possibility that their autonomy could be manipulated by third parties.

The ethics of medicine requires physicians to help patients, while minimizing potential harm. In addition to errors and privacy risks, scientists worry about potential adverse effects of a completely implanted device like Neuralink, since device components are not easily replaced after implantation.

When considering any invasive medical intervention, patients, providers and developers seek a balance between risk and benefit. At current levels of safety and reliability, the benefit of a permanent implant would have to be large to justify the uncertain risks.

What’s next?

For now, Neuralink’s trials are focused on patients with paralysis. Musk has said his ultimate goal for BCIs, however, is to help humanity – including healthy people – “keep pace” with artificial intelligence.

This raises questions about another core tenet of medical ethics: justice. Some types of supercharged brain-computer synthesis could exacerbate social inequalities if only wealthy citizens have access to enhancements.

What is more immediately concerning, however, is the possibility that the device could be increasingly shown to be helpful for people with disabilities, but become unavailable due to loss of research funding. For patients whose access to a device is tied to a research study, the prospect of losing access after the study ends can be devastating. This raises thorny questions about whether it is ever ethical to provide early access to breakthrough medical interventions prior to their receiving full FDA approval.

Clear ethical and legal guidelines are needed to ensure the benefits that stem from scientific innovations like Neuralink’s brain chip are balanced against patient safety and societal good.

Nancy S. Jecker, Professor of Bioethics and Humanities, School of Medicine, University of Washington and Andrew Ko, Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery, School of Medicine, University of Washington

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Flowers grown floating on polluted waterways can help clean up nutrient runoff

The Conversation
February 13, 2024

Flowers (Shutterstock)

Flowers grown on inexpensive floating platforms can help clean polluted waterways, over 12 weeks extracting 52% more phosphorus and 36% more nitrogen than the natural nitrogen cycle removes from untreated water, according to our new research. In addition to filtering water, the cut flowers can generate income via the multibillion-dollar floral market.

In our trials of various flowers, giant marigolds stood out as the most successful, producing long, marketable stems and large blooms. Their yield matched typical flower farm production.

Why it matters

Water pollution is caused in large part by runoff from farms, urban lawns and even septic tanks. When it rains, excess phosphorus, nitrogen and other chemicals wash into lakes and rivers.

These nutrients feed algae, leading to widespread and harmful algae blooms, which can severely lower oxygen in water, creating “dead zones” where aquatic life cannot survive. Nutrient runoff is a critical issue as urban areas expand, affecting the health of water ecosystems.

Water pollution is an escalating crisis in our area of Miami-Dade and Broward counties in Florida. The 2020 Biscayne Bay fish kill, the largest mass death of aquatic life on record for the region, serves as a stark reminder of this growing environmental issue.

How we do our work

We study sustainable agriculture and water pollution in South Florida.

Inspired by traditional floating farm practices, including the Aztecs’ chinampas in Mexico and the Miccosukees’ tree island settlements in Florida, we tested the idea of growing cut flowers on floating rafts as a way to remove excess nutrients from waterways. Our hope was not only that the flowers would pay for themselves, but that they could provide jobs here in Miami, the center of the U.S. cut-flower trade.


Chemical conditions in the test tanks were the same as in nearby polluted waterways. Jazmin Locke-Rodriguez, CC BY-ND

We floated 4-by-6-foot (1.2-by-1.8-meter) mats of inexpensive polyethylene foam called Beemats in 620-gallon (2,300-liter) outdoor test tanks that mirrored water conditions of nearby polluted waterways. Into the mats we transplanted flower seedlings, including zinnias, sunflowers and giant marigolds. The polluted tank water was rich in nutrients, eliminating the need for any fertilizer. As the seedlings matured into plants over 12 weeks, we tracked the tanks’ improving water quality.

Encouraged by the success of the marigolds in our tanks, we moved our trials to the nearby canals of Coral Gables and Little River. We anchored the floating platforms with 50-pound (22.7-kilograms) weights and also tied them to shore for extra stability. No alterations to the landscape were needed, making the process simple and doable.



Some plants grow roots in places – such as the stem – other than where their original roots began. Jazmin Locke-Rodriguez, CC BY-ND

What still isn’t known

The success of the giant marigolds might be linked to the extra roots that grow from their stems known as adventitious roots. These roots likely help keep the plants stable on the floating platforms. Identifying additional plants with roots like these could help broaden plant choices.

Future raft designs may also need modifications to ensure better stability and growth for other cut-flower and crop species.

What’s next

Our promising findings show floating cut-flower farms could be a sustainable option for mitigating water pollution.

How floating cut-flower farms can clean polluted waterways.

One of us (Locke-Rodriguez) is expanding this research and working to scale up floating farms in South Florida as a demonstration of what could take place in the many locations facing similar issues worldwide.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Jazmin Locke-Rodriguez, Post Doctoral Associate in the Institute of Environment, Florida International University and Krishnaswamy Jayachandran, Professor of Agroecology, Florida International University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

San Diego State University report calls Tijuana River contamination 'a public health crisis'

2024/02/13

A flooded field with massive buildup of trash, raw sewage, and debris litters the Tijuana River Valley on Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024 in San Diego. 

- Alejandro Tamayo/The San Diego Union-Tribune/TNS

SAN DIEGO — A new report from researchers at San Diego State University, citing "untreated sewage, industrial waste, and urban run-off due to inadequate infrastructure and urbanization," calls the Tijuana River "a public health crisis" that imperils the good health of a wide range of people who live, recreate and work near the polluted waterway, particularly when wet weather causes floods to spread.

In a white paper that is not itself peer-reviewed research, authors synthesize the multiple studies that have documented pollution over the years, pausing on a recent paper documenting that the threat also extends to ocean-going mammals. Bottle nose dolphins stranded in San Diego, the white paper notes, died from infection by erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae, a bacteria "generally transmitted through contact with feces or urine in contaminated water, food or soil."

In addition to drug-resistent pathogens in river water, a graduate student study analysis last year of river water at the border detected the presence of 392 organic chemical contaminants, 175 which "appeared in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencies Toxic Substance Control Act."

Contaminated air from the region, researchers found, could potentially "increase the health risks of local community members without any direct water contact," a statement that references the potential aerosolization of polluted water in sea spray, a possibility documented by UC San Diego biochemist Kim Prather in 2023.

Researchers call for better monitoring of environmental contaminants and a deeper investigation of "nearby community exposures and health effects," including investments "by Congress and federal and state agencies " to "slow and prevent. the ongoing and egregious contamination" and also to assess local environmental harm.

Officials with the university and local leaders were scheduled to discuss the new white paper Tuesday.

_________

© The San Diego Union-Tribune

New bill seeks to salvage rooftop solar for working class in California

Julia Conley, Common Dreams
February 14, 2024 

Technician checking solar panels on roof (Shutterstock)

Backed by two climate action groups, Democratic state lawmakers in California on Tuesday launched an effort to reverse the damage done by state regulators last year when they slashed incentives for residents to install rooftop solar panels—wreaking havoc on the once-thriving industry even as the state faces an energy crisis.

Introduced by state Assemblymembers Laura Friedman (D-44) and Marc Berman (D-23), Assembly Bill 2256 would unwind the policy put in place last year by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which was supported by the state's three investor-owned utilities and sharply reduced the amount utilities pay people with solar panels when they sell surplus power to the grid.

The policy applied to homeowners as well as renters in disadvantaged communities, and critics warned it would put solar panels even further out of reach for low- and middle-income Californians.

A.B. 2256, sponsored by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and Environment California, would require the CPUC to "consider the wider community benefits of rooftop solar" in its policymaking, said CBD.

"This bill will force state regulators to stop shirking their duty and consider renewable energy's wide-ranging benefits so rooftop solar is available to everyone," said Roger Lin, a senior attorney at CBD. "The commission's decision to tank the state's rooftop solar policy was a gift to corporate utilities and a gut punch to communities and our environment. We're in a climate emergency, and it's reckless for the commission to ignore the harm fossil fuels do to our health and environment when it's making energy decisions."

Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group (EWG), said earlier this month that "rooftop only pencils out for the wealthy" under the CPUC policy, which has caused solar companies to lay off 17,000 workers in less than a year and pushed 75% of firms toward bankruptcy.

Rooftop solar power had "been making great strides in low-income communities," state Sen. Josh Becker (D-13) told the San Francisco Chronicle earlier this month, but "this [CPUC decision] makes it harder."

A.B. 2256 was introduced weeks after CBD, EWG, and the Protect Our Communities Foundation asked the California Supreme Court to overturn the CPUC policy following unsuccessful challenges at the commission and a state appeals court.

It also comes a day after Environment America Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group published a report marking the dramatic growth of rooftop solar nationwide over the past decade, with 10 times as much power produced in 2022 than 10 years prior.

California ranked as the state with the largest growth in small-scale solar generation, producing 24,121 gigawatt hours (GWh) in 2022—just before the CPUC policy was introduced. In 2012 the state produced just 2,453 GWh.

"Rooftop solar is good for the environment and consumers," reads the report. "It reduces our dependence on fossil fuels, eases strain on the grid during periods of high demand, can increase resilience to threats like extreme weather, and limits the amount of land needed for clean energy—all at steadily falling costs."

The California Air Resources Board suggested in 2022 that disincentivizing solar power for residents was the wrong direction for the state to go in, saying the state needed to double its rooftop solar to meet its target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030.

"How can we weigh the costs and benefits of rooftop solar without considering all the benefits to our health, our neighbors, and what's left of our open spaces?" said Lin. "This is not a zero-sum game. We can't ignore our climate, the urgent need for energy justice, and the significant community benefits of rooftop solar and expect to have a fighting chance against climate change."

DESANTISLAND

Moms for Liberty work like a genteel Stasi — rooting out dangerous thought

Diane Roberts, Florida Phoenix
February 12, 2024 

DeSantis receives a ceremonial 'Liberty Sword" at the 2022 Moms for Liberty national summit in Tampa. (Photo via Florida Governor’s Office/City & State Fla.)

The moms of Moms for “Liberty” are feeling a little touchy, put-upon, even diminished.

Their do-boy DeSantis crashed out of the presidential race like a drunk out of a second story saloon.

They’re losing school board elections.

They’re making idiots of themselves in the national media. Check out this MSNBC interview in which Moms co-founder Tiffany Justice simultaneously defends taking books off school library shelves while denying that Moms want books taken off school library shelves, unless they’re by Black writers or gay writers, or ones dealing with the Holocaust, coming out, sexual violence, racism, and good old heterosexual whoopee.

Justice and her sister suburban harpies claim they want to protect children’s “innocence.”

Bridget Ziegler via Facebook

For months now they’ve been forced to defend themselves against charges of rank hypocrisy: Bridget Ziegler, another Moms co-founder and member of the Sarasota County School Board, likes the odd three-way with her husband, former Florida GOP chair Christian Ziegler, and another woman.

We know this because 1. Bridget admitted it; 2. Christian filmed it.

The Moms keep frantically trying to distance themselves from Bridget, insisting she officially left the group in January 2021, and no, they don’t approve of her exotic proclivities.

Nevertheless, Bridget Z. remains one of their most high-profile champions, pushing book bans, embracing DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay Law,” and attacking trans people.

Sarasotans wish she would go away: “You have emotionally and psychologically damaged countless students, parents, and teachers with your hateful rhetoric,” said one man at a school board meeting. “Resign.”

But Bridget refuses to resign from the school board or from her perch on DeSantis’ hand-picked Disney oversight board.

Christian’s been canned; somebody’s got to make a living.

Evils of Social Studies

Still, though the luster may be coming off those clutch-able pearls, the Moms haven’t stopped fighting unionized teachers pushing inconvenient facts that may lead to actual thinking.

The menace du jour? Social studies.

The Duval County Moms chapter is pitching a hissy fit over what they call “government schools” teaching children to be “activists.”

The lessons they object to include such basic civics as “Good citizens learn about their community,” maybe “think about problems that need to be solved” and “go to community meetings and talk about issues.”


Shocking!

Funny thing, though: The Moms would surely admit they created their organization after thinking about problems they thought needed to be solved, and decided they’d go to community meetings to talk (or in their case, shout) about issues.

Social studies explore how history, culture, civics, values, economics, and the arts help shape our society; the discipline is foundational to functioning as an informed citizen in a democracy.

But the Moms don’t like democracy and they don’t like any academic subject that might challenge the religion of American exceptionalism.

Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. Credit: Florida Department of Education

Have a look at the Duval Moms’ twitter page: a festival of white paranoia, misinformation, and transphobia. One scandalized poster blasts Michelle Obama for helping to lead an organization that helps eligible high schoolers register to vote.

Like Taylor Swift, Michelle Obama is a clearly radical operative working to destroy the nation.

The Moms work like a genteel Stasi, passing damning “information” on enemy teachers and “liberal” school boards to their most important ally, the state of Florida.

The state also hates social studies.

Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. has been particularly energetic in reducing public school social studies to white nationalist propaganda.

Your moment of irony: Manny Diaz was once a social studies teacher.

‘Politically charged’

In a unit on American symbols, one elementary school textbook had said that while the convention is for people to stand during the national anthem, a teacher might “take this opportunity to talk about why some citizens are choosing to ‘take a knee’ to protest police brutality and racism.”

That language is gone.

Another lesson about Judeo-Christian influence on western civilization included the discussion question: “What social justice issues are included in the Hebrew Bible?” and suggests the Bible “includes guidelines for responding to poverty, famine, and injustice; it emphasizes respecting human life, giving generously, caring for strangers and refugees, and respecting property.”

The state objected to the phrase “social justice” — seems it’s “politically charged,” unfit for students, and must be erased.

The Moms congratulate themselves on their success in censoring and bowdlerizating materials that might suggest the world is complex, not always pleasant, and rarely simple, as well as any suggestion that America is not the best nation there ever was.

The kids may struggle with gender and race but can’t read books that deal with gender and race. The kids may wonder why racism persists in a country that never shuts up about “freedom” and “equality,” but they won’t be taught how the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow still haunts our institutions.

DoE deemed a lesson on how the killing of George Floyd and other instances of police violence against Black people sparked “a growing awareness of systemic racism” and led to the formation of Black Lives Matter.

The material did not take a side, pro- or con BLM, pointing out that some protests became violent and many Americans disagreed over whether the police needed to reform.

The language was factual, but that didn’t matter. DoE didn’t even bother to edit it: They just deleted the whole unit.

That’s what the Moms want. A void where facts used to be.

Minefield of wokeness

They object to the novels of Judy Blume and Toni Morrison, as well as innocuous books such as “Martin Luther King and the March on Washington” and “Ruby Bridges Goes to School” (about the first Black child to integrate an all-white New Orleans school in 1960), claiming those texts teach Critical Race Theory.

Moms couldn’t define Critical Race Theory if their lives depended on it. They just know it has the word “race” in it.

They would prefer white children to be clueless about race, from how this country formed itself on the labor of enslaved Africans to segregation to redlining.

Now it’s Black History Month, a minefield of wokeness, and the Moms are nervous.

Top Mom Tina Descovich sounded the alarm about a Black Lives Matter “Week of Action” curriculum some schools might use in February.

BLM’s suggested topics include “Empathy,” Loving Engagement,” and “Diversity,” but also “Trans-Affirming,” “Queer Affirming,” and “Black Villages,” which suggests that the nuclear family is not the only way to raise children.

In case those words didn’t sufficiently terrorize white parents, Descovich posted a photo of a Black person in a hoodie, fist raised.

Not very subtle, is she?

But the DeSantis regime and its frightened white supporters don’t value subtlety. Or consistency, integrity, or truth.

This is a state in which Republicans want to raise the age to become a stripper and lower the age to buy a rifle, ban abortion from the moment of fertilization, turn our universities into conservative re-education camps, and make our schools patriotic indoctrination centers. The Moms are all in.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.