And now in education … regarding the new draft curriculum brought out by the United Conservative Party of Alberta – ignoring child cognitive development, the latest social history education research we get this deplorable attempt by the UCP at social manipulation…laden with useless history, completely unreachable for k-6 students.
As I used to say over and over, ‘relevance, relevance, relevance’. If it’s not relevant to the student in today’s world, why know it? What’s the point, the end goal? Even knowing it for its own sake is rather pointless. It has to ‘mean’ something, go ‘somewhere’. None of that kind of purpose is to be found, it has been intentionally deleted and replaced with outdated content and outmoded means of teaching long left behind as fundamentally useless to children growing up in the computer, handheld device age. This ‘old’ style curriculum is plainly meant to stupefy students, to make them mindless not mindful. That is the point though isn’t it? The UCP and their very ultra conservative wing are bound and determined to eliminate critical thinking, analysis and synthesis from both historical and societal views. Only facts, thief facts, will do. No interpretation, no analysis as that will be told to you. They firmly believe the slow demise of conservatism has largely been because of the questioning of authority, which history and whose, all being thrown open to critique and, of course, all from a non religious and social scientific point of view. Post-modern liberalism with its critical thinking is, to them, the culprit for all the maladies and difficulties in today’s society. And this curriculum is their antidote.
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Taking advantage of a general aversion to and gross lack of knowledge of socialism, in particular the NDP, due to a constant bombardment of negative press by the giant media conglomerate Post Media, as well as an education curriculum, though seen as highly progressive by some, that still maintained a conservative and free enterprise bias, the United Conservative Party won a majority in the last provincial election.
They are doing as they promised they would with their majority – hitting the province with so many bills opposition won’t be able to keep up nor be solidly organized as these bills cover so many different areas all at once. The effort is to dramatically change what Alberta is presumed to have become, to retrograde a refit so as to make it so solidly conservative that no other thought can germinate here, that no other kind of society can exist here. To become, in effect, a model of private enterprise and libertarianism, where freedom of the individual within it is paramount, a living breathing ‘Atlas Shrugged’ as Ayn Rand had envisioned.
The drive to create from the past an extreme libertarian capitalist economy where everything is held in private hands, where the word public as a means of collective ownership is done away with, so no public lands, parks, water, air, as all will be owned, bought, sold, and exploited privately for the good of the individual owner. People are free to do as they please with what they have, no restraints, no regulations. Complete and totally free self interest. No groups, associations or unions of like individuals, no professional groups, doctors, nurses, teachers nor labour groups will be allowed to exist. To effectively bargain with employers, each person will be on their own in terms of negotiating for working conditions and salary. The main drive of government is to support economic interests over those of the individuals who work in them or of those who are affected by their activities. To that end strict laws restricting opposition and protest are brought in, complaints minimized and derided as coming from miscreants and cranks. Regulations ensuring that business adheres to policies of societal, worker, safety and environmental concerns are seen as, and downplayed as, ‘red tape’ are done away with or marginalized as to make them worthless. What remains for regulation is to be overseen by a committee comprised of business concerns to be largely a self regulating organization to ensure things are done that best guide business practice toward greater profitability.
To promote this economy wholesale changes in society must occur. The population’s liberal thoughts must be reined in through a dramatic return of religious undertone, if not overtone, namely conservative white Christian religion, others may be tolerated, but clearly not equal to. This is reminiscent of the Aberheart/Manning era. Education of children must be returned to very conservative roots to eliminate critical thinking, questioning of authority with an emphasis on justifying the dominance of white christian society. This is to ensure that this extreme, at the moment minority, conservatism becomes mainstream and solidly in majority for the foreseeable future. The new curriculum will also entrench the view of an Albertan Exceptionalism within Canadian confederation that will see them opt out of much of the Canadian constitution, Canadian law and multiculturalism. This will allow health care to be deregulated, privatized and the idea of universal health care abolished and seen as unprofitable, wasteful and counter to the freedom of private enterprise.
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An out migration of liberal thinkers and professionals is to be expected, and hoped for, as much as an in-migration of conservatively white Christian like minded people will offset the initial population loss. Of course, a rather belligerent ‘Big Brother’ will be needed to herd the rabble and control the critics. Over time this can be whittled down as societal governance will become ever more corporate and the remnants of government will simply be as a regulator of corporate law and order nothing more.