This time, the author of the PACEs, Donald Howard, is going to make the case that today’s subject was a direct agent of the Devil, whom he blessed with supernatural powers. To do this, Scripture gets pillaged of any meaning at all, and history gets rewritten. This passage comes with quite a bit of sexism attached.
Reading this suggests that ACE simply have no idea why the Bolsheviks were able to take power in what Trotskyists like Red Flag (https://redflag.org.au/node/5673) describe as the most radical transformation of society in history. In fact, this is much worse still than other ACE history studies where at least they do possess such an idea.
Whist there are many explanations offered by non-fascist, non-Austrian, non-Trotskyist historians for the Bolshevik Revolution — some of them extremely odd — ACE provide no explanation at all.
Trotskyists offered and offer a clear explanation that the working classes of Europe had been fighting for increased political power ever since the Communist Manifesto appeared, and that the war intensified this struggle. Ron Rogowski in his 1989 ‘Commerce and Coalitions’ and Jeffrey G. Williamson in a series of articles from around the turn of the millennium, explain the rise of socialism in Europe in terms of economic gains from free trade by European labour turning into a desire for political power. Accelerated Christian Education, like the somewhat similar (although Catholic) ‘Politically Incorrect Guide’ series, offers no explanation whatsoever and in effect treats the Bolshevik Revolution as a Satanic mystery. In his 2016 ‘The Politically Incorrect Guide to Communism’ and 2020’s ‘The Devil and Karl Marx’, Catholic Paul Kengor makes the same entirely erroneous association of Communism with Satan that ACE does.
I feel like Donald and ACE know these things, but they have to twist it into a "Satanic mystery" in order to obfuscate reality. If they confronted the fact that labor just wants food on their table, and to be treated with dignity, they'd have to also acknowledge that they are the oppressor. This also creates a dynamic where the student can't even consider the merits of 'Communism,' without crossing the bridge into Evil-ville. Thought-control, I suppose.
Also, thanks for reading and I appreciate the inputs. Definitely added those volumes to my reading list.
There is no doubt that the extreme right wants desperately to prevent students from having any idea of what “socialism” and “capitalism” actually are, or why Marxism became so well-established and dominant among the European working classes in the half-century before World War I. Why Christianity became and remained so utterly discredited amongst that group, but not amongst working or other classes elsewhere around the globe is also undiscussed. A possible clue can be found in ‘Social Democracy and the Aristocracy’ by John Kautsky as well as the works of Rogowski and Williamson (‘Globalization and Inequality: A Long History’, ‘Globalization, Convergence and History’, ‘Inequality and Schooling Responses to Globalization Forces: Lessons from History’) I noted previously.
The tendency is not confined to Evangelicals: it is similarly widespread amongst American Catholics, historically much more moderate on racial issues, and it would be worthwhile to discover how these issues are discussed in Catholic homeschool curricula. Whilst there will be more similarities than differences, medieval history and modern politics will not be treated in the same way and I would expect other much subtler differences.
Reading Red Flag, alongside many other Trotskyist websites, one can conclude that the radical right wish to make history much more complex and mysterious than it is. The argument at https://redflag.org.au/node/6511 and at https://redflag.org.au/node/6761 that socialism involves above everything else the complete abolition of private ownership, bosses and profits alongside direct control by workers is obviously feared. Indeed, the mere thought that this could for all but a tiny minority constitute an incomparably better system than unrestricted private capitalism is deeply threatening to the whole global system led by the US elite (and their allies ruling the Gulf petromonarchies).
Viewing Communism, or even what conservatives call “socialism” (but which Red Flag and others argue is more accurately called “state capitalism”) as an evil conspiracy is a perfect solution to this question. It highlights the worst aspects of these regimes, and explains them in terms giving the mass of ordinary people zero agency, whilst unnamed factions of ruling classes are made conspirators seeking power without any reason why they seek power being provided. The masses actually played a critical role not merely in the Russian Revolution, but as Per-Åke Westerlund notes at https://www.socialistalternative.org/lenin-original-dictator/lenin-original-dictator/, in preventing counter-revolution by inhibiting foreign ruling class action through threats to spread revolution internationally.
when i read "impregnated with filth," i repeated it out loud out and then you textually did the same! 😂 anyway, i keep telling myself that i should no longer be shocked and yet, as i continue, i keep getting shocked at the sheer pedagogical incompetence, flagrant indoctrination, blatant sexism, and unmitigated gall of the founder and his cronies to establish, disseminate, and stand by this dumpster fire of bullshit disguised as "christian" and "education". millstones for the win!
Hahaha! That was one my brain didn't even process the first 10 times I read it, it was so buried in the crazy bullshit. I'm glad someone else still gets shocked by this too. Hopefully in the future no one has to use this curriculum, like we did.
Thanks for your support :) Millstones for the win!
Reading this suggests that ACE simply have no idea why the Bolsheviks were able to take power in what Trotskyists like Red Flag (https://redflag.org.au/node/5673) describe as the most radical transformation of society in history. In fact, this is much worse still than other ACE history studies where at least they do possess such an idea.
Whist there are many explanations offered by non-fascist, non-Austrian, non-Trotskyist historians for the Bolshevik Revolution — some of them extremely odd — ACE provide no explanation at all.
Trotskyists offered and offer a clear explanation that the working classes of Europe had been fighting for increased political power ever since the Communist Manifesto appeared, and that the war intensified this struggle. Ron Rogowski in his 1989 ‘Commerce and Coalitions’ and Jeffrey G. Williamson in a series of articles from around the turn of the millennium, explain the rise of socialism in Europe in terms of economic gains from free trade by European labour turning into a desire for political power. Accelerated Christian Education, like the somewhat similar (although Catholic) ‘Politically Incorrect Guide’ series, offers no explanation whatsoever and in effect treats the Bolshevik Revolution as a Satanic mystery. In his 2016 ‘The Politically Incorrect Guide to Communism’ and 2020’s ‘The Devil and Karl Marx’, Catholic Paul Kengor makes the same entirely erroneous association of Communism with Satan that ACE does.
I feel like Donald and ACE know these things, but they have to twist it into a "Satanic mystery" in order to obfuscate reality. If they confronted the fact that labor just wants food on their table, and to be treated with dignity, they'd have to also acknowledge that they are the oppressor. This also creates a dynamic where the student can't even consider the merits of 'Communism,' without crossing the bridge into Evil-ville. Thought-control, I suppose.
Also, thanks for reading and I appreciate the inputs. Definitely added those volumes to my reading list.
There is no doubt that the extreme right wants desperately to prevent students from having any idea of what “socialism” and “capitalism” actually are, or why Marxism became so well-established and dominant among the European working classes in the half-century before World War I. Why Christianity became and remained so utterly discredited amongst that group, but not amongst working or other classes elsewhere around the globe is also undiscussed. A possible clue can be found in ‘Social Democracy and the Aristocracy’ by John Kautsky as well as the works of Rogowski and Williamson (‘Globalization and Inequality: A Long History’, ‘Globalization, Convergence and History’, ‘Inequality and Schooling Responses to Globalization Forces: Lessons from History’) I noted previously.
The tendency is not confined to Evangelicals: it is similarly widespread amongst American Catholics, historically much more moderate on racial issues, and it would be worthwhile to discover how these issues are discussed in Catholic homeschool curricula. Whilst there will be more similarities than differences, medieval history and modern politics will not be treated in the same way and I would expect other much subtler differences.
Reading Red Flag, alongside many other Trotskyist websites, one can conclude that the radical right wish to make history much more complex and mysterious than it is. The argument at https://redflag.org.au/node/6511 and at https://redflag.org.au/node/6761 that socialism involves above everything else the complete abolition of private ownership, bosses and profits alongside direct control by workers is obviously feared. Indeed, the mere thought that this could for all but a tiny minority constitute an incomparably better system than unrestricted private capitalism is deeply threatening to the whole global system led by the US elite (and their allies ruling the Gulf petromonarchies).
Viewing Communism, or even what conservatives call “socialism” (but which Red Flag and others argue is more accurately called “state capitalism”) as an evil conspiracy is a perfect solution to this question. It highlights the worst aspects of these regimes, and explains them in terms giving the mass of ordinary people zero agency, whilst unnamed factions of ruling classes are made conspirators seeking power without any reason why they seek power being provided. The masses actually played a critical role not merely in the Russian Revolution, but as Per-Åke Westerlund notes at https://www.socialistalternative.org/lenin-original-dictator/lenin-original-dictator/, in preventing counter-revolution by inhibiting foreign ruling class action through threats to spread revolution internationally.
when i read "impregnated with filth," i repeated it out loud out and then you textually did the same! 😂 anyway, i keep telling myself that i should no longer be shocked and yet, as i continue, i keep getting shocked at the sheer pedagogical incompetence, flagrant indoctrination, blatant sexism, and unmitigated gall of the founder and his cronies to establish, disseminate, and stand by this dumpster fire of bullshit disguised as "christian" and "education". millstones for the win!
Hahaha! That was one my brain didn't even process the first 10 times I read it, it was so buried in the crazy bullshit. I'm glad someone else still gets shocked by this too. Hopefully in the future no one has to use this curriculum, like we did.
Thanks for your support :) Millstones for the win!