• PNW_Doug@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    You know I went to high school in Florida back in the 80s, and even my old white racist history teacher who insisted it was either the "War of Northern Aggression, or the “War Between the States*” flat out said the south seceded ‘because of slavery.’ She knew it was pointless to claim otherwise. You only need to read each state’s declaration of secession to see it writ in plain English.

    *Because thee’s no such thing as a “civil” war, was her excuse.

    • Donkter@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      She didn’t know it was pointless. She didn’t see the point. The point is to create a paranoid and uneducated populace who don’t trust institutions that educate people and help them lead self-fulfilling lives so a certain part of the ruling class can manipulate them into being scared of whatever they need to be to give away their money and blame someone else.

    • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      My Florida High School experience was in the 90s, and I had the same thing. I’m slowly realizing as I get older how much I was lied to, either by omission, or just straight up bullshit. My favorite one that was until I watched Hamilton, I believed that the French betrayed us during the Revolutionary War and fought for England. I distinctly remember being taught that Lafayette sank American ships and allowed the British to advance. It’s fucking wild.

      One of my other lovely examples of mis-education is dowsing rods. I thought that shit worked. It never came up in my life, but my grandfather told me that he dowsed the land we all lived on to dig the well, and I just bought it. Much, much later I thought about it, and I was like, “Wait, that’s not real, right? What’s the science behind that?” And I looked it up. Bullshit.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        My favorite one that was until I watched Hamilton, I believed that the French betrayed us during the Revolutionary War and fought for England. I distinctly remember being taught that Lafayette sank American ships and allowed the British to advance. It’s fucking wild.

        What? Even in terms of bullshit falsehoods that get taught in schools, that’s a new one on me. Are you sure you didn’t just… learn it wrong or something?

        I mean, Ben Franklin going to France to get support for the revolution was a whole thing, ya know?

        I would be interested to find out if your childhood friends remember it the same way or not.

      • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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        24 hours ago

        I’m from New England and I learned that we won the Vietnam War 😬

        Granted, it was Catholic school, but it has an otherwise pretty good record

      • Machinist@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I was taught it was about states rights including succession in public school. Was also told that evolution was a theory and that evolution wouldn’t be covered, creationism was mentioned.

        Last visit with my father, he was talking about dowsing for his neighbor’s new pond. I grew up thinking it was real as well and was taught how. Forked stick from a green tree.