In case you missed this tidbit, like I had:
Tea Party pushes "Constitution Week" lesson plan
CBS News -- May 25, 2011
[...]
The Tea Party Patriots, Georgia-based but claiming 1,000 chapters nationally, are instructing members to remind teachers that a 2004 federal law requires public schools to teach Constitution lessons every Sept. 17, commemorating the day the document was signed. And they'd like the teachers to use material from the Malta, Idaho-based National Center for Constitutional Studies, which promotes the Constitution as a divinely-inspired document.
The center's founder, W. Cleon Skousen, once called Jamestown's original settlers communists, wrote end-of-days prophecy and suggested Russians stole Sputnik from the United States. In 1987, one of his books was criticized for suggesting American slave children were freer than white non-slaves.
[...]
"It's indoctrination, not education," said Doug Kendall, director of the Constitutional Accountability Center in Washington, D.C. "They're so far from the mainstream of constitutional thought that they are completely indefensible."
Ahh, I don't think the Tea Party Patriots Zealots are going to let a little thing like -- actual Historical Facts, get in their way ... It is the Tea Party, afterall ...
Tea Party Patriots --Adopt a School Program
It's as easy as 1-2-3:
[...]
If your school is hesitant toward implementing a Constitution Week program, please let your Tea Party group know, and then contact the media in your community.
Remember the Corporate Media, especially those of the Murdoch variety, Never Says No, to the Tea Party's Plans ...
September 17 -- Flag Day. Not too far off. Mark down the day.
It's the day the Tea Party wants to re-write History ... in a Public School room near you ...
The Tea Party Wants to Teach Your Kids About the Constitution
by Stephanie Mencimer, MotherJones.com -- May 12, 2011
[...]
As part of the "adopt a school" campaign, TPP [Tea Party Patriots] and its members are advising school officials to rely on lesson plans, DVDs, and a package of other course materials created by the National Center for Constitutional Studies (NCCS). The group was founded by Cleon Skousen, a rabid anti-Communist with a highly controversial take on American history. Skousen, who died in 2006, was the author of Glenn Beck's favorite book on the Constitution, The 5,000 Year Leap. Among other things, he promoted the idea that the Constitution is a divine document that may have biblical roots.
Who was this W. Cleon Skousen character, anyways? And why is he SO popular with the Tea Party crowd?
Oh, wait ... nevermind. Mr Tea-Brain himself, made Cleon a household word (in some houses, that is.)
The Man Behind Glenn Beck's Chalkboard
How W. Cleon Skousen whitewashed American history.
by Tim Murphy, MotherJones.com
Right-wing historian W. Cleon Skousen has seen a posthumous rise in popularity thanks to Fox News host Glenn Beck, who has praised Skousen's book The 5000 Year Leap and said that the 9 principles and 12 values of his 912 Project were inspired by Skousen's "28 principles of freedom." [...]
So what does Skousen's version of American history look like, exactly? A reading of Skousen's 1986 textbook, The Making of America, [...]
I knew, Beck was "lifting" his agenda/talking points, from somewhere!
It seems that many Tea Party followers, first prompted by Beck, have been marching to Cleon's divine Indoctrination syllabus, ever since.
Religious Teachings that trace OUR American Constitution's origins, back to some unexpected, and questionable "divine" sources, to say the least ...
All Patriots 'Know' That Moses Wrote the Constitution
by Garrett Epps, TheAtlantic.com -- Oct 29 2010
[...] it's quite striking that the seminar, which begins at 8:30 a.m., takes until 1:30 to get to the actual Constitution.
That's because we have to learn the basic truth about the Constitution: God wrote it. It comes directly from the government instituted by Moses when he led the Children of Israel out of Egypt. That system was re-instituted in England around 450 A.D. by the Anglo-Saxon rulers Hengist and Horsa. The Founding Fathers, led by Thomas Jefferson, copied the Constitution directly from the "ancient constitution" of the Anglo-Saxons.
At this point a faint alarm bell should be ringing. First of all, just for the record, Jefferson didn't take any part in writing the Constitution. He was in France, and when he read the Constitution he had mixed feelings about it. (Jefferson did actually write the words "a wall of separation between church and state," [... more.])
All this Moses-Israel-Anglo-Saxon re-genesis of our Country's grandest Document, would all be laughable, and all too easy to dismiss -- as easy Beck himself was -- except for one little thing:
These are the Teachings that the Tea Party wants to substitute for actual American History, in a Public School near you ...
Legal Advocates Slam Tea Party Constitution Classes
by Stephanie Mencimer, MotherJones.com -- May 13, 2011
[...]
the tea partiers wanted the public schools to teach the Constitution based on the writings of the late author of the 5,000 Year Leap, W. Cleon Skousen. Skousen's views on the Constitution are considered well outside the mainstream, and they include ideas drawn from white supremacist dogma and other shady sources. One of his textbooks on constitutional history contained blatantly racist material suggesting that slaves were actually a happy bunch of folks.
[...]
Friday morning, Doug Kendall, the president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, a liberal-leaning think tank and public interest law firm, blasted out a press release urging educators to keep the tea partiers out of their schools. He said:
I defy the Tea Party Patriots to find one credible historian willing to support their view of the Constitution’s history. Before the Tea Party gets to go into school and teach our children about the Constitution, they need to find a tenured professor on the history faculty on one of any of the 50 highest-rated universities in the United States who will vouch for the accuracy of their teachings. [...]
Thank goodness for at least one voice of reason, Doug Kendall, standing up against this "Adopt a School" program, on the grounds that it is based on Fictitious History.
It would seem we need perhaps, a few more voices of reason, to back him up; before the Tea Party's many Fables become even more a standard of "acceptable truths", by the Corporate Media, than they already are.
Afterall young impressionable minds are at stake. And our Constitution's true heritage, is at stake as well. (... and perhaps the disappearing credibility of the Corporate Media too.)
Just thought you all, might like to know ... just in case this Tea Party-sponsored "Public Service", slid by your radar screen, without as much as a warning beep ...