Hello, everybody, Welcome back to the nonprofits. So how a conservatives group's
videos gained a fool in classrooms with the health from Republican officials. So in
a surprising dance between education and ideology, prager You, the conservative nonprofit renow
for its right wing misinformation videos, has found an uncommentional partner in public schools,
with a recent approval from educational agencies in four states, including a stamp
of enthusiasm from state officials and promotional videos prager You Kids cartoon materials are making
their way into classrooms. From critiquing universal health care for teens, so teaching
young children about Israel's Iron Dome. These videos have sparked concerns and debates over
potential right wing biases infiltrating education. As per you expands its foothold, the
intersection of politics and school curriculum takes far to a common turn. This story
comes from MBC News by Tyler Kincaid and Antonia Hilton, publish on December thirtieth
of twenty twenty three. All Right, controversial topic here, everybody, Okay,
hot take. I don't care what parents teach their kids, even if
the ideology is against mine, because guess what, though, is shoitty.
I am not the arbitrator of parenting. Okay, so that out of the
way. I do have an issue with propaganda videos like teaching children about Israel's
iron dome. Ooh, that's really compelling contact to a care in your garner.
That's you know, that doesn't belong in public schools. This is not
why we pay our jaxes. So I definitely have a lot more to say
about this, but I'm going to take this over to Graham because I am
sure he has many opinions about how fucking stupid this is. Yeah, this
is an you know, I want to be utterly angry about this, but
it is an actual It raises some legitimately interesting questions. But first, let's
talk about Prager You. In the past, they have produced videos opposing transgender
healthcare, topic we've talked about in another segment. They've produced videos suggesting that
Americans say Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays. So they've got that religious,
sort of conservative background that's obvious to anybody that looks into them. But for
this Prager You Kids video that we're talking about, they have, as you
said, included lessons about why universal health care is horrible and it's worse than
the US's current system, the Iron Dome thing. They even have a segment
where two time traveling kids ask Christopher Columbus whether he enslaved Indigenous people, and
Columbus responds being taken as a slave is better than being killed and assists it's
a stupid o to judge him by modern moral standards. That is straight out
of the Lost Christian playbook as to how to respond when anybody asks them about
slavery in the Bible. Oh, well, it was different and it's stupid,
and it's a different time, and being a slave wasn't as bad as
is now today. These are the people that are getting their content in front
of our in front of our kids. They even did a video with Frederick
Douglas depicting of Frederick Douglas defending the Founding Fathers for not outlawing slavery. So
these are horrible people. This is why people like the SPLC, the Southern
Poverty Law Center have described prager You content as propaganda. And that's really the
complaint. This is propaganda, and so what can we do about it legally?
That's sort of that's always my approach what can we do about it legally?
Not much, right, school districts have a wide latitude to decide what
we teach kids, as long as what they teach is factual. So if
they are going to have these videos saying things that are false, and they
have made videos, We've had researchers attack Praguer you for making videos mischaracterizing their
research on climate change to try to prove the opposite point, et cetera.
Then we might have some leg to stand on legally, But for now,
we need to get political about this. This is a political solution, I
think, because we're dealing with propaganda where they may actually say things that are
true. I'm educating you about the universal healthcare system and then I'm issuing maybe
an opinion, And because it's propaganda, we need to go to the courts,
and not the courts, excuse me. We need to go to our
representatives and say enough is enough. We're going to vote people out who put
this stuff in the classroom, and we may even pass laws about what is
and what is not taught. As far as propaganda versus education. My background
is in the law, and I've got an undergraduate in political science, and
it reminded me of an article a paper I read that was written in nineteen
thirty five. So you can imagine what the world look like in nineteen thirty
five, World War two, World War WI on over fascism on the rise,
propaganda being the way that people were trying to get trying to win over
people for fascism. The article is just entitled education and Propaganda, and it
says in it quote, propaganda consists in efforts to affect adult behavior. It
may be regarded as primarily designed to produce action or attitudes favorable to compliance with
action on the part of others. In other words, we can tell propaganda
from education because the purpose of propaganda is to produce action or favorable attitudes.
Right, and so that is what Prager used doing. And the politicians that
are on these school boards that are obviously conservative are going right along with it.
What is your take, Jimmy Well, I am never surprised that there
is kind of this religious undertone to these right wing groups, and they're never
far removed from blatant lives right. Do you bring religion into into the discussion.
You always have to kind of navigate around something that just is not true
and so these are just different opinions, but these are blatant lives that are
actually harmful to children. I do have an undergraduate in history, and while
I'm no expert, I would be shocked to learn that Frederick Douglass uh didn't
have a problem with the found the founding father's opinions of slavery. In fact,
I have a book called The Life and Times of Frederick Frederick Douglass UH,
and I don't remember, I don't remember ever reading that he was okay
with slavery. It would kind of go against his whole stance about slavery.
What do you thought for weird? Right? Right? Weird? So not
only are they are they lying to children, but then they're replacing their education,
uh with things that really aren't even pertinent to children. I mean,
talking about Israel's Iron Dome? Is that really appropriate in a context where you
are trying to teach morals? I mean that's what this is. This attempt
with these videos, are trying to at least program children morally based on this
code that's presented by religion, by Christianity. But are you really in the
right realm when you're talking about nuclear weapons and religious conflict? When you start
talking about maybe the Middle East and reasons for defense integrated air defense systems and
missiles and bombs and yahd yah. I mean I didn't get that in first
grade, you know, second grade, I didn't get any of that,
And it's probably a reason for that. That is a very complex thing to
bring up. I do have, you know, kind of this concern that
we can't judge what happened in the past by modern standards because they're just moving
the goalpost. I mean, we couldn't judge slavery in the Bible in two
thousand BCE by modern standards, but now we can't also judge slavery that happened
in the year fifteen hundred CE. I mean, when does it stop.
Slavery's happening now? Is it okay that's happening now? I know this slavery's
happening now. There is systematic sterilization of groups of people based on their ethnicity
taking place in concentration camps in the world today. So where is the line
drawn? I just think at some point somebody has to really make a change.
You know, it's going to take one of these people, like we
we've had a discussion earlier about a politician who stepped up and kind of turned
the corner on traditional conservative policies. Well, it's going to take that kind
of introspection for somebody to say, you know what am I really is?
Like? Am I? Am I doing the right thing? But this is
a money grab as well. So you got to remember that sometimes people really
don't even care what they're selling as long as it's making them rich. And
I think Prigger used probably benefiting that from that greatly. So yeah, that's
uh, those are my initial thoughts, Infidel, what do you say?
I would have to say that the person who would be most surprised at Frederick
Douglass supporting the Founding Fathers not abolishing slavery would have to be Frederick Douglas.
I think he would be rather surprised to find out he was okay with that.
But Prager wants the American education system to and resemble how was Generations a
go. He thinks there needs to be more attention to character development in schools
like thee nineteen thirties, he said, minus the bad things. Now,
you know, Jimmy already touched on the basis of where we were in the
thirties, so when you start talking about minus the bad things at that point,
that's a pretty big list for me, though. How dangerous is it
for someone who calls themselves an educator? How much trust did you have?
And someone who says I'm an educator who wants to return to the way we
did things almost one hundred years ago. I mean, that seems like the
antithesis of education is to say, let's go back in time. You know,
what does that mean? Is it when people of color knew their or
women didn't have any control over their lives or their bodies, or gays back
in the closet, good Christian values taught in our schools. I'm not sure
if I'm listening to Pregger you or a typical GOP rally. You know,
one thing I was appalled about is pregger You claims that they're in the mind
changing business. And this goes back to something that that you mentioned Cross,
is that this is not that's our education. When you're in the mind changing
business, you're you're in the business of a doctrination. You're you're you're you're
are. And of course he also argued that it teaches gratitude for being an
American and I'm not saying people shouldn't be glad to not be in some of
the places they could be in. But gratitude is something that you don't just
teach. It's something that's developed over an appreciation of actual events, not something
you teach in a classroom now. But you know, they're getting into these
schools through GOP politicians, as this story has pointed out. And we see
Ryan Walters, We've covered him, and he has absolutely thrilled about this.
And you know these pegger you kids cartoons promoting this propaganda material with the idea
right now for state educational systems agencies are actually approving it. The first of
course, Helen, being your Florida of course, I know you're so proud,
but I'm just sorry, Helen. Someone mentioned the Christopher Columbus video.
I watched it again here before this story, not too long ago, and
he talks about hell, yeah, you know, slavery, you know is
better than being dead, no, and all these little condescending things, and
he also talks about how it was good that Columbus spread Christianity. What is
the idea of Columbus spreading Christianity as a good thing doing in public schools?
You know, I heard his slavery is better than being dead, more calling
about other gods being bad, and of course praising Jesus Pegger. You know,
for me, it's more like Prague or puke. So with that in
mind, bark bag in hand, Helen, are you ready? Oh?
Oh yeah, I got some shit. Okay. Besides the fact that mister
Prager is using the term university super loosely, everybody like it is as a
as a thing. This and this stuff has already made its way into onto
college campuses, and there are young people and you know, young conservatives that
are eating this stuff up, and it's being used as part of political groups
on college campuses, and some of the rhetoric has made its way into classrooms.
Now I don't tend to have as much of a problem with that because
the idea is hopefully with some critical thinking and you know, ability to decipher
this that you know, they'll think a little bit more about like the content
that they're consuming, or is there choice if they want to now buy this
ship? You know. But what we're talking about impressionable children. And that's
where I have a problem, because I know, we keep talking about Christopher
for Columbus but the motherfucker did a genocide. Like he just didn't talk about
slavery, you know, like you didn't just enslave people. He killed a
Polynesian population, that's and that went instinct because of him and his and the
people that, you know, the Europeans he brought over to those islands.
So this was he isn't a He was a terrible, terrible human being and
also a freaking idiot. So just by the way he navigated, y'all,
he's just very good at getting the Spanish ground to give him money. So
you know, I'm just going to point that out now, my my feelings
Christo for a Columbus aside. Now, I don't know about you, but
when I was in school, I remember learning math, science, English,
getting your mom to do your science dynoramic as it was due the next day
and you forgot to get it done, and you know, you conor into
helping you out so you get a good grade, you know, like stuff
like that, normal things, you know. And I'm really frustrated because this
is in doctrination into nationalism that we don't question Christianity, we don't question what
question question? Oh my god, I forgot how to say that word,
question things that are being taught about. You can't question the you know,
greatness of the United States. You can't question Christianity. You can't you know,
question slavery. You know, that's what propaganda is designed to do,
to make you fall into one side, your side is correct, and to
adopt these ideas. And these are impressionable children. And I don't think this
should be done in schools. Like again, I'm not the arbitraarrior of parenting,
you know, but but and I can't stop other people or what they're
going to teach to children. You know, we all know this, but
when you're in a classroom, you should be teaching facts, not propaganda.
And that's what's so disgusting about this is that these aren't facts. These aren't
about the things that really happened. Because like I remember, when I was
in public school and we learned about slavery, it was not excuse. We
talked about the whoores that happened and how terrible it was, and that stuck
with you. We learned about World War Two and what happened in Germany.
That sticks with you, and it should Those are the things that should stay
with you when you learn about you know, the real reality of history,
and regardless of religion or not, all types of people do bad things throughout
history, and those are the things that we should question and get kids to
actually learn what really happened. Don't try to sugarcoat it, don't try to
make it into some glossy picture to push an ideology onto children. And fuck
you Dennis Prager for putting that shit in front of our kids. And that's
all I gotta say. Go ahead, Graham. Well, following that,
uh I find myself in agreeance with all of you to to quibble one bit,
Helen quibble. I agree. I agree that when they are citing their
opinions that is not a fact. But the tricky part, the reason I
said this is an interesting story is you have two from a legal perspective,
you have two particularly interesting questions. One who gets to choose which facts get
presented in the classroom, because you can create papaganda by only presenting true statements
but an incomplete picture like uh I did a story once on the on the
McDonald hot coffee case right where a lady was in her car spilled hot coffee
on herself and ended up winning millions and millions of dollars, and the press
went crazy with it. And that's what the Republicans said, all of them
true facts. They use those facts to convince the country to enact tort reform
that damaged every single citizen. Right, it limited their ability to recover.
When giant companies chop their arm off at the factory or where where obgu i
ns are severely negligent, and your child is now brain damage for their life,
you can only collect a million bucks. Sorry, I know they need
twenty five million for the rest of their life. You only get a million,
they said. Facts. They just left out all this other other facts
that would give a reasonable person pause. Right, they would cause them to
go, well, wait a second, these facts make it seem like this.
But now when you tell me these other facts, it's outrageous that this
lady got as little amount of money as she did from McDonald's. So to
wrap up to talk about their true motives, prager, you you know,
choosing the you know choose. They want you to help politicians choose which facts
get presented and then embed these opinions that are implied or stated in the form
of these sock puppet conversations between Columbus and some kids and all of that.
They are promoting behind the scenes a religious agenda. And to give you an
example, I looked up their twenty twenty three annual report. On the cover
and you can go to the prager you site, there's a link there for
this report. On the cover there is a young child with an American flag
running across a field, and below it there is a quote, you shall
teach these commandments diligently to your children. You should talk to them when you
dwell in your house, and when you walk on the way, and when
you lie down and when you rise. Where does that come from? Deuteronomy
six seven? And below that there's letters in Hebrew that says something that I
can't even read, sort of trying to further propagate this sort of myth of
Judaeo Christianity that was created by evangelicals in the last several decades to try to
get more votes from the Jewish population of the United States. So they are
on their cover of their annual report saying Christian quote quote from a Bible,
we are going to teach our children about the ten commandments. That's all you
really need to know to know what their motivations are well, they can teach
their own children whatever they want, and they can do it inside their own
house. I don't see why or how this is even being subsidized by the
government, because this is a blatant constitutional violation in my opinion. You know,
I'm no legal expert, but when you have a public funded school that
is teaching well lies about history number one, but also one that is centered
on Christianity, then you find yourself in the dilemma of violating that constitutional right
where the state is not going to sponsor religion. And to that point,
I want to just well point to the Constitution because regardless of our competing interests,
these political parties that are constantly a war with each other are different religions
and our different world views, et cetera. You know, we are all,
despite our differences, American by virtue of the fact that we share an
administrative culture. Via the Constitution, we are guaranteed certain rights. So when
we have political opponents accusing each other of being un American, you know it
would do us well to remember that each of us, despite our differences,
are very much American. The problem that we're running into, though, is
that these rights don't equally apply to everybody, and that is on American and
we as Americans have a responsibility to make that work. We also have a
responsibility to check each other on how we are bringing our beliefs into the public
sphere and remind each other that they belong in their own private sphere. And
you know, that's basically all I have on that. So I'm proud to
be an American, an atheist American, and I'm going to teach my kids
to think for themselves and not just believe everything they hear. But Jimmy,
their report has a child on the cover with an American flag. I don't
understand why you're upset, because I was that child once. Yeah, that's
why. Listen, Jimmy, it's it's America first with Christianity and fuck the
rest. Okay, just get in line, man, Just get in line.
I mentioned Oklahoma Superintendent Walters, and we've talked about him before. He
is He's went on record saying that the separation of church and state is a
myth. So understanding that someone coming from that perspective is so excited about Preger
you material coming to school children in his state, I understand why, and
I do think that there is a real questionable situation that this article brought out
about how Prager's tactics were actually coordinated with elected officials in these states on how
they were going to get this passed and how to spoon feed this to the
legislature and to get this approved in the classrooms. And that is very unsettling
to think that they're taking their views, that they can have what ever views
they want to on church on Sunday, but when they appear show up at
the office on Monday, those views need to take a backseat to that job
or they need to find a new one. And that's something we've covered here
before recently. So that's what my biggest takeaway is the constitutionality. I get
that gray area of you speak half truth and you spoon feed the lie underneath
it, and it's okay because well, I spoke the truth. Not when
you start talking about Jesus and they literally talk about Jesus and they literally talk
about those other religions that he brought Jesus to them from, and that type
of thing. At least I hope that it can be clear cut that there's
simply no place in our educational system for this type of discussion or video or
this what I almost consider a bad version of veggie Tails with a little more
religion on top. So don't you dare if you have nobody sees me on
the show next week, you know what happened. And with that, I'm
going to be quiet and pass it on to Helen. Please do. And
since you pass it on to me, if you want to know more about
how you can, you know, fight for things like the separation of church
and state and what we can do to make to make our schools a better
place, check out from your YO