BSmack wrote:Just a little note for those who think that geography is supposed to be no more than "learning where countries are on a map". This is the State of Colorado's Model Content Standards for Geography.
People everywhere have a need to know about the nature of their world, beginning with themselves. Therefore, geography has to do with both asking questions and solving problems, as well as memorization of facts. Geography is composed of three interrelated and inseparable components: knowledge, skills, and perspectives. Investigating the geographic dimension of human experience begins with asking the following:
* Where is it?
* Why is it there?
* How and why does it affect the people in this place?
* In what other places do people confront this issue?
* How and why are these places related?
* What alternatives do people have to improve their situation?
The answers to these and other questions constitute geography.
http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdeassess/standards/geog.htm
We can disagree about the alleged "slant" of Bennish's presentation.
Uhhh, yes, we can.
Comparing Hitler to Bush in what was essentially a one person diatribe that contained no edifying facts to support his case in no way has anything to do with anything on your list there.
But it is certainly within the scope of the curriculum as dictated by the State of Colorado to analyze and discuss current geopolitical events.
No, it most certainly isn't, not in the way he presented it. Like MtLR said, maybe had the teacher put out the topic as subject for debate and had he assigned different groups within the class to offer their arguments, sure, fine.
That isn't how it went down. He basically preached to a bunch of impressionable fifteen year olds, many of whom will simply later parrot what their teacher told them. Lacking any other initiative, that's often all that kids do when it comes to political food for thought.
"If the teacher said it, hey, good enough for me. I'll try to make myself sound smart and say something outrageous and anti establishment! Maybe Mary Sue Cum Lips will think I'm smart!", is often the thought process of the dimwitted fifteen year old.
The shit gets handed down, verbatim, and if a kid says it often enough he even comes to believe it.
1. Lobbing cruise missiles in the general direction of humans presupposes that innocent people will die. The military even has a term for the phenomena. It is called "collateral damage".
General society has an all purpose phrase for it as well: "Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette."
If Pakistan and Afghanistan don't want missiles being lobbed their way then maybe they might want to stop harboring al Queda. Despite the outcome of that particular intelligence and its cause and effect nobody in their right mind is going to try and deny that that village has in the recent past provided safe haven for those targeted by those bombs.
This is war. Shit happens, especially when you bring it on yourself.
That's a nice way of saying that it is inevitable that innocent people will die in an armed conflict. So, in that regard, the decision to fire the missiles was a deliberate decision to kill whatever happened to be on the ground at that time. Ergo, to do so on the basis of shoddy intelligence is nothing better than criminal negligence.
Nope. It's war. While we didn't get who we most wanted to get we did in fact get a few al Queda members. So, that village is not without blame. They were harboring terrorists.
2. Capitalism in and of itself may not require that people suffer. However, it does not actively seek to promote the good of humanity either.
Nonsense. It promotes that which is best in humankind. Those societies that successfully adopt capitalism inevitably benefit from it far more than from any other economic system. Demeaning attempts at artificially sharing the wealth by lowering the standards across the board inevitably create a lower standard of living.
The U.S. is in the position of being the care taker of the world and the most generous nation in the history of the planet precisely because of their successful foray into unmatched freedoms combined with sustained capitalism.
It strikes me that capitalism promises entirely less than it ultimately delivers in regards to human welfare, whereas socialism delivers far less than it promises. Maybe that is why we as Americans find socialism so reprehensible.
Capitalism promises no limits in any direction, and here we are.
3. As much as my sympathy for Bennish's views might color my perception of his teaching, it is apparent in your writing that your dislike of his perceived views is coloring your take.
Once you peel away all the loftier notions discussed in this thread the bottom line is here we had a complete douche of a teacher soap boxing his personal anti American political beliefs to a group of fifteen year olds in a public school geography class. As if that isn't bad enough, the actual meat of his message was downright idiotic, and he delivered that message as Truth, not as an invitation to open debate.
That is apparent when you say things like "I'm an American and not about to cede my national sovereignty to any "citizen of the world/one world government" crap". That is nothing more than putting words into Bennish's mouth that he did not say, and IMO, did not even imply.
The guy did note that his view is the rest of the worl'ds view, without adding the necessary disclaimer that the rest of the world's view is irrelevant since this was a U.S. school and often as not the rest of the world necessarily licks our boots just to survive.
As needy and fucked up as the rest of the world is they're really in no position to be passing judgement on how their gravy train does things. They could only dream of rising to the level of being as fucked up as we are. So, as the saying goes, when we want their opinion we'll give it to them.
Overly harsh? Sure.
Brass tacks bottom line reality? Yep.
We set out and charted a political/economic course that has no parallels in world history. Based on the unwavering support of those unique tenets we've managed as a nation to quickly rise from nothing to a level of national and world success unheard of on planet earth.
That being the case, are we really supposed to give a rat's ass when jealous third world religious zealots cast stones in our general direction?? For that matter, are we really supposed to take heed when France bitches??
They're the fucking French.
Pot/kettle...glass houses...the whole nine yards.