Arizona Bill Ushers In New McCarthyism

Via The Anxious Black Woman

An amendment to a bill in Arizona's House of Representatives has been issued from the Homeland Security advisory council to prevent public schools from using tax dollars that support the teaching of and any organizing based on values "that denigrate or overtly encourage dissent from the values of American democracy and Western civilization" (See legislative document).

Sounds like any curricula or student organization that would criticize capitalism, globalization, anti-immigration, Christian fundamentalism, and - oh yes! - white supremacy, is in trouble.

What makes this legislation deeply insidious is that it looks like it's an issue of "homeland security," completely dismissing our right to public education while also hoodwinking the general public into not recognizing how its very language is a violation of our First Amendment rights! This doesn't support our democracy; it strikes at the core of it!

Fortunately, Arizona citizens are working hard to prevent this amendment from passing. Please lend them your support by signing this petition.

If we let this slide in Arizona, I can only imagine the horrendous repercussions if it leads to a domino effect.

This, my friends, is the fallout when feminists and other progressives don't band together (because racism continues to divide us) and when Democrats don't get their act together. How many of us are even sure that a Democrat will be in the White House next year? The fact that we're not even sure about this means that we're in trouble, for only when that happens will this neoconservative trend, which fuels racism, xenophobia, fascism, and the worst forms of rampant corporatized consumer culture (which as I've stated yesterday will lead to the destruction of us all), start to reverse.

And when all the progressive professors (myself included) are legally silenced, and all our students (many of whom are in debt - which is a contemporary way of saying ENSLAVED) are prevented from radically organizing, there's no mistaking the handwriting on the wall.

Act now!