Coop Scoop: Florida Now Thinks Slavery Had Benefits -- For the Slaves!

Governor DaFascist Strikes again.

July 21. 2023

By Marc Cooper

It’s amazing the things you can now learn behind Florida Governor Ron DaFascist’s Orange Curtain.  His hand picked state Board of Education – chosen directly from the monkey cages at the Tallahassee zoo--  this week imposed a new curriculum for middle school students claiming that slavery wasn’t so bad after all.  Florida middle schoolers will now be taught that slaves achieved a “personal benefit” from being in bondage as they “developed skills” for “betterment.”

After all, when you are held hostage by an aristocratic White plantation class, some of their goodness is bound to rub off on you.

Welcome aboard, my Negro friend. You are gonna learn so much!

Among the benefits learned by those tutored, mentored, and cared for by The Master Race: the enslaved learned to weather weeks of sea sickness and death during the Middle Passage; they learned to keep a stiff upper lip when family members were sold off as pieces of meat; they learned to pick cotton in insufferable heat for 10 hours a day; they learned to face down the pain and horror of whippings and beatings and serial rapes; they learned they were counted as 3/5 of a human being. And if they used any of those valuable skills taught them by Massa to escape, they learned they would be hunted down by a pack of peckerwoods and hounds and if lynched, they no doubt they learned to hold their breath — unless until the rope snapped their necks. And they learned after they were freed that such freedom would only last about a decade until Reconstruction came to a crashing halt and was replaced by segregation, Jim Crow and disenfranchisement.

Hey, don’t make light of these benefits! Quite valuable skills if you are going to be in the underclass for another century or two.

The Florida School Board members – whose own scholastic records probably match their public idiocy and arrogance – also imposed new guidelines on how to teach kids about three very notorious massacres of Blacks in the early 20^th century. They are now to learn that both sides were shooting at each other, though the Blacks were apparently using blanks as all the victims were Black.

Strange, no?

To call this racist is so obvious that it is beside the point. In fact, it belittles the point. Racism abounds but only begins to really matter when the racists exercise power, especially state power.

And that is what Governor DeFascist is all about…harnessing the power of the state to punish imaginary enemies. That’s the totality of his program and the cave man antics of his education appointees are a small but very revealing part of his kampf.

The lesson plan is a deliberate lie that degrades the value of honest history and demonstrates total contempt for the poor bastards who have to sit in and teach those classes.  And more than racist, it is authoritarian, fascist adjacent, as it adopts a dictatorial approach to the issue and to education in general.  It is one more desperate and ugly move by the Governor whose presidential campaign is currently on life support and who is intent in turning Florida into a White Christian Nationalist Enclave.  Only thing missing are Russian spetznaz troops standing by to impose order and stamp out “wokeness” as they so regularly do in Mother Russia.

“Our standards are factual, objective standards that really teach the good, the bad and the ugly,” Paul Burns the state’s Dept of Education chief for K-12, was quoted as saying Wednesday by Florida Phoenix. He denied the new standards portray slavery as beneficial. (Note: He did not deny that his family once participated in the Vichy government, but maybe he should have to disprove the rumors --- I just started).

I’m not even going to bother with the critical statements made by Florida Democrats.  They are the totally predictable clucking of the tongue with absolutely NO suggestion what anybody should do about this.  Well, I can tell you one thing I would suggest: the next time the chimps on the School Board meet, there should be 10,000 very angry parents and students demonstrating, sitting down and performing massive civil disobedience all around the building and in the streets. As there should be every time Governor Herr Meatball appears in public. And the Democratic Party on the ground might consider extricating it’s head from its ass in mobilizing voters as Micah Sifry aptly points out.

And btw, while the teachers union has condemned this, what are THEY going to do about it? An answer please!

Another suggestion: union stewards and activist teachers should organize in as many schools as possible so that on a given day, dozens, scores, hundreds of Florida teachers willfully and publicly challenge these strictures by coordinating a counter lesson on the same day.  Yes, some teachers might get fired, Cuz, you know, when you stand up to fascists and racists and pig administrators, you run some risks. The alternative is to forever risk your conscience by complying with a dehumanizing lesson that glorifies slavery by remaining silent and passive. Ask the maquis about risks, please.  Put these extremist mothafuggers in a position where they must back down or fire a whole faculty and leave a school with no teachers.

I can imagine what this board will do when it comes time to revise and review the teaching of the Holocaust. I doubt they will come out in favor of mass eradication of Jews by Hitler, but there are some subtleties here that could be exploited.  My best guess is that they will roundly and forcefully condemn Hitler – not for mass murder. Rather for turning these cosmopolitan Hebes into martyrs.  And by doing so, we Jews learned and experienced many “personal benefits.”  Like the dumbest among us is ten time smarter than a turd like the Governor! 

But more importantly, I can see a lesson where kids are taught that Hitler’s brutality, a bit excessive, created a diaspora of toughened up Jews who then proceeded to take over everything from the movies, to the banks, to the deep state, the Democratic Party, the Communist Party and even that high powered space laser that MTG wet her pants over.

On only a slightly more serious note, this Florida stuff really un-nerves me.  If u read the history of Nazi Germany, a real history not one from Florida, you will be shocked to see how quickly all aspects of civil society fell into support of Hitler. Every organization from the Army down to local chess and sports clubs, Nazified themselves to oppose the threat of socialists and Jews.  This is precisely the sort of thing we are seeing in Florida (and in many other parts of the USA).  Local racists, authoritarians and know-nothings are busy taking over school and library boards, building an authoritarian state from the bottom up while Democrats are shaking their heads and then going out to wax their Volvos.

The only aspect more distressing in this situation is the widespread apathy, shrugging of shoulders, and empty tongue-clucking from milquetoast Democrats. We are not OK. We are NOT out of the woods. The extreme right is gaining ground globally and is likely to win the Spanish elections on Sunday. Finland, Sweden and Italy and of course Hungary and Poland have also adopted extremist governments.  If you think we are immune, that it cannot happen here, that democratic rule in the US cannot be threatened, that defeating Trump will end this movement, well, then, you are a fine candidate for one or another of Governor DaFascist’s state boards. You qualify with a 89 IQ.

Where’s the outrage> And I don’t want to hear about it.  I god damn want to see it! ++

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