"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
THE
VICE PRESIDENT: I am a product of teachers and an educational system
that believed in providing the children with the full expanse of
information that allowed them to then — and encouraged them — to then
reach their own conclusions and exercise critical thought in a way that
was directly intended to nurture their leadership.
I am fully
aware that it is because of that approach that I stand before you as
Vice President of the United States of America. (Applause.)
So
when I think about where we are today, and who we are as a community of
people within the beauty of the diversity that I see in front of me, I
know that there are many things we share in common. And, first and
foremost, we share in common a deep love of our country and the
responsibility we each have, then, to fight for its ideals. That is so
critically important on the subject, then, that gathers us here today.
Because,
you see, when we think about it, part of true patriotism means fighting
for a nation that will be better for each generation to come.
(Applause.) Right? Believing that our nation is worth the investment
in fighting for the children of America, that we will provide them with
the information they need to go into the world and lead. (Applause.)
I
will tell you, as Vice President of the United States, I have now met
with over 100 world leaders — presidents, prime ministers, chancellors,
and kings. One of the things about who we are as Americans is we can
walk in those rooms with the authority earned, for the most part —
except recently, sometimes — (laughs) — earned authority to walk in
those rooms talking about what it means to uphold democracies, the
importance of rule of law, human rights.
And when we walk in those rooms, we do it proud of the fact that we have been held up and held out as a role model.
Well, the thing about being a role model is this: When you’re a role model, people watch what you do to see if it matches what you say. (Applause.)
So, understand the impact that this is happeni- — having not only for
the children of Florida and our nation, but potentially people around
the world. Because, on a more specific point, in that regard, we want
to know that we are sending our children out as role models of a
democracy, who, therefore, know the importance of speaking and telling
truth, the importance of understanding when you are a leader, you must
know history. (Applause.)
And, by the way, be really clear — be
really clear: All the folks that we would go out and send our children
to go and meet around the world are clear about our history, and we’re
going to send our own children out to not know what it is? Building in a
handicap for our children, that they are going to be the ones in the
room who don’t know their own history when the rest of the world does?
Think about this for a moment — the levels of proportion.
So when I think about where we are, I do believe that our strength as
a nation has always been because we are continuously and always
invested in fighting to reach our ideals.
And let’s remember the preamble to the Constitution of the United States. Ben Crump.
MR. CRUMP: Yes, ma’am. (Laughter.)
THE
VICE PRESIDENT: “We the People…in order to form a more perfect union”
is part of the spirit behind our founding as a democracy. Implicit in
those words is we understood we must strive to form a more perfect
union. Implicit in those words was an understanding we are imperfect.
And we must be honest about that to understand, then, our history, where
we’ve been, and then have a North Star in terms of where we must go.
(Applause.)
So when I think about what is happening, then, here in Florida, I am deeply concerned. Because let’s be clear: I do believe this is not only about the state of Florida; there is a national agenda afoot. (Applause.) And what is happening here in Florida? Extremist so-called leaders for months have dared to ban books. Book bans in this year of our Lord 2023.
Extremists here in Florida passed a law, “Don’t Say Gay,” trying to
instill fear in our teachers that they should not live their full life
and love who they love. (Applause.)
And now, on top of all of
that, they want to replace history with lies. Middle school students in
Florida to be told that enslaved people benefited from slavery.
AUDIENCE: Booo —
THE VICE PRESIDENT: High schoolers may be taught that victims of violence, of massacres were also perpetrators.
I
said it yesterday: They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us —
(applause) — and we will not have it. And we will not have it.
And,
you know, as parents, we teach our children to tell the truth. It’s
one of the first things we teach our children: love and honor their
parents, their God, and tell the truth. We teach our children not only
to tell the truth, but to seek knowledge and truth.
It’s part of
what we know is about putting them on the road for them to grow and
develop for the sake of our mutual well-being and prosperity. These are
the things we tell them.
Well, I think we should model what we
say. (Applause.) These extremist so-called leaders should model what we
know to be the correct and right approach, if we really are invested in
the well-being of our children. Instead, they dare to push propaganda
to our children.
This is the United States of America. We’re not supposed to do that. (Applause.)
And
here’s the other piece about this. Now, when adults know what slavery
really involved — come on — adults know what slavery really involved.
It involved rape. It involved torture. It involved taking a baby from
their mother. It involved some of the worst examples of — of — of
depriving people of humanity in our world. It involved subjecting to
people the requirement that they would think of themselves and be
thought of as less than human.
So, in the context of that, how
is it that anyone could suggest that in the midst of these atrocities,
that there was any benefit to being subjected to this level of
dehumanization? (Applause.) In the midst of these atrocities, that
there was some benefit? (Applause.)
So, it is not only
misleading; it is false. And it is pushing propaganda. People who walk
around and want to be praised as leaders, who want to be talked about
as American leaders, pushing propaganda on our children. Pushing
propaganda on our children.
And when we think about it, you
know, when we send our children to school, as parents, we want to know
that they are be taugh- — they are being taught the truth. It is a
reasonable expectation. It is a reasonable expectation that our
children will not be misled. And that’s what’s so outrageous about what
is happening right now: an abject and purposeful and intentional policy
to mislead our children.
And so, let us be clear: Teachers want
to teach the truth. (Applause.) Teachers want to teach facts. And
teachers dedicate themselves to some of the most noble work any human
being could take on: to teach other people’s children — (applause) — for
the sake of the future of our nation.
And so, they should not
then be told by politicians that they should be teaching revisit- —
revisionist history in order to keep their jobs.
What is going on? (Applause.)
Our
teachers who fear that if they teach the truth, they may lose their
job. As it is, we don’t pay them enough. (Applause.) You know! I
know.
And these are the people — these extremist, so-called
leaders — who all the while are also the ones suggesting that teachers
strap on a gun in the classroom instead of what real leaders should be
doing and be engaged in reasonable gun safety laws. (Applause.)
These
are the same extremist leaders — so-called leaders — who make teachers
fear losing their job for having a photograph of their spouse on their
desk. (Applause.)
But let’s be clear: On this issue, as it —
with — this is not the first time in history that we’ve come across this
kind of approach. This is not the first time that there are powerful
forces that have attempted to distort history for the sake of political
ends.
Think about in the past how we have seen attempts to
minimize and even deny the Holocaust. (Applause.) Think about those
who tried to rewrite the history of the Japanese internment camps, erase
our nation’s dark and sordid history in how we have treated the Native
people and, in particular, through educational systems. (Applause.)
Those who have tried — and there are states where they have — to ban
teaching Latino and Hispanic history.
This is not the first time.
But
when we think about it then in the context in which we should —
understanding there is a national agenda afoot, understanding that there
are many aspects of our history that some would like to overlook,
erase, or at least deny — let us think about then what this creates as a
moment for us to also then rededicate ourselves to the coalition.
(Applause.) Our responsibility at moments like this to understand
nobody should be made to fight alone. We are all in this together.
(Applause.)
And take a look — because, you know, there are a lot
of teachers here, I think. So I’m going to tell — you know, one of the
things I love is Venn diagrams. Any math teachers in the room? I love
Venn diagrams. And I have — I have done an exercise of — of looking to
see from where are we seeing the attacks on things like voting rights,
LGBTQ rights, a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body, book
bans. And you will not be surprised to know a lot of them revert to
the same source.
So, let’s think about this then as an
opportunity to build back up the coalition of all people who believe in
our foundational and fundamental truths — the truth that we are and will
be a more perfect union when we fight for justice — (applause) — when
we fight for equality, when we fight for fairness, guided by a belief in
who we are as a nation and telling our truths.
And I will — I’ll close with this. History has shown us that, in our darkest moments, we have the ability to unite — (applause) — and to come out stronger. We know E Pluribus Unum, “Out of many, one.”
That is who we are in this room. Out of many, one.
Americans who came here through Ellis Island. Americans who were kidnapped and brought over on slave ships. Americans who are native to this land.
Our history as a nation is born out of tragedy and triumph. That’s who we are. Part of that is what gives us our grit — knowing from where we came, knowing the struggles that we have come through, and being stronger in our dedication to saying, “No more” and “Not again.” (Applause.)
It is part of what makes up the character of who we are as America. So let’s reject the notion that we would deny all of this, in terms of our history.
Let us not be seduced into believing that somehow we will be better if we forget. We will be better if we remember. (Applause.) We will be stronger if we remember.
We fought a war to end the sin of slavery. A civil war. People died by the untold numbers in that war, many of whom fought and died because of their belief that slavery was a sin against man — (applause) — that it was inhumane, that it was not reflective of who we believe ourselves to be as a country, and certainly not reflective of who we aspire to be.
So who then would dare deny this history? Who would dare then deny that these lives were lost and why they were lost and what was the cause that they were fighting for and what were they fighting against?
They weren’t fighting and dying because they thought people were — were going to be okay with this thing. (Applause.) It’s because they knew that it had to end because it was so, so criminal.
So, we know the history, and let us not let these politicians, who are trying to divide our country, win.
Because, you see, what they are doing — what they are doing is they are creating these unnecessary debates. This is unnecessary to debate whether enslaved people benefited from slavery. Are you kidding me? (Applause.) Are we supposed to debate that?
Let us not be distracted by what they’re trying to do, which is to create unnecessary debates to divide our country. Let’s not fall in that trap.
We will stand united as a country. We know our collective history; it is our shared history. We are all in this together. (Applause.)
We know that we rise or fall together as a nation. And we will not allow them to suggest anything other than what we know: The vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us.
And so, let us stand always for what we know is right. Let us fight for what is right. And when we fight, we win. (Applause.)
Amidst Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s (R) hostile takeover of the Florida education system, the New College of Florida is struggling to hold onto its faculty.
In January, DeSantis appointed the far-right anti-LGBTQ+ activist Christopher Rufo, among other conservatives, to the New College’s board of trustees in an effort to make the school more conservative. The college had a reputation for being progressive and queer-friendly, but Rufo said the board would conduct a “top-down restructuring” of the school that will involve designing “a new core curriculum from scratch.”
But now, Provost Bradley Thiessen says 36 faculty have left in the past year alone. In a school with fewer than 100 full-time faculty members, that’s a lot. The Tampa Bay Times reported that it often takes over a year for universities to fill full-time positions, and without any advanced notice from the majority of the departed faculty, the school is now struggling to provide all of the courses that students need.
Currently, the school is relying on visiting faculty, but it’s still not enough. Former New College professor Liz Leininger said that although she felt guilty leaving her students, she ultimately decided to leave after the former school president Patricia Okker was fired upon the new board’s first meeting. Leininger left a vacancy in the neuroscience department, also leaving students like third-year Alaska Miller in the lurch.
“Either I don’t graduate on time or I’d have to abandon my major,” Miller said, referencing the fact that there is only one faculty member left in the school’s neuroscience department and no courses offered this fall.
During his time in office, DeSantis has waged war on public education, most notably through his “Don’t Say Gay” law and his vendetta against the teaching of racial and LGBTQ+ issues in schools.
An ex-Guantanamo Bay detainee says he remembers, to this day, how Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis smiled at him from behind a fence while watching him get force-fed, per the Daily Beast.
The Daily Beast reported on Saturday that they obtained a verified transcript of an unaired VICE documentary titled "The Guantanamo Candidate." This included an interview with a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, Mansoor Adayfi, who was suspected of being an al Qaeda operative before his release in 2016. Adayfi now lives in Serbia.
Adayfi said he first met DeSantis in 2006 when the Florida Republican went to Guantanamo along with several groups who'd "arrived to bring the camp under control." At the time, Adayfi and the other detainees were on a hunger strike to protest against their imprisonment, per Adayfi's account. DeSantis, who was then a US Navy lawyer, was providing legal advice to the detention center.
"As I'm looking at you now, I could see them standing behind the fence, watching and looking at us," Adayfi said, per the transcript, adding that DeSantis was "smiling."
"While being you, screaming and shouting and bleeding and like, throwing up and sh[**]ting on yourself, and someone is smiling at you? You cannot forget that," Adayfi continued.
Adayfi added in the documentary interview that he came across DeSantis' photo years later, and saw his name.
"I cannot forget when he was there watching us with the force-feeding," he said. "You cannot forget that because those people left really bad scars in your soul."
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