 here. So I just finished reading Peter Ackroyd's history of England up until I think the reign of the Tudor is up until about the 14th century. It was one particularly provocative line. Good men rarely make for good kings. And I think he's right. And I think we can extend that to presidents and to executives and to generals. Generally speaking, you want good people in your life. But sometimes it's much more important to have an effective person in your life. And I'd rather have an effective surgeon who's not a good man to, you know, a less effective surgeon who is a good man. I'd rather have an effective dentist, an effective accountant, rather have an effective professional landscape architect, own builder. When I primarily have an instrumental relationship with people, then what's most important to me is how effective they are. And so I don't think there's the positive correlation between being a good person and being a good president or being a good general, being a good leader. So in some things, yeah, goodness is absolutely critical. But in other things, I don't think it matters very much. So I've been reading a lot about Ron DeSantis and apparently he's got really bad people skills. Apparently he's just a jerk. Apparently the people who work for him don't like Ron DeSantis. Apparently the people who interact with him don't like Ron DeSantis. Apparently he's a loner. He's awkward. He's stuck up. He's self-centered. I mean, really bad people skills like worse than Donald Trump, way worse than Donald Trump. So surely that's going to come out in the political campaign ahead. But if he's able to get into office, I don't care if he's not a good man. I don't care if he's not appropriately grateful. I don't care if he's tough on his staff. Ron DeSantis as opposed to Donald Trump has a pretty good track record for running things, such as Governor of Florida. So does Ron DeSantis' unappealing personality bother you? What if Ron DeSantis is not a good man? Okay, a lot of interesting things in this New Yorker article, the right-wing mothers fueling the school board wars. Guys, did you know that the right-wing are fueling school board wars? And tell me if the sound quality is too bad because of all the wind, right? Bloody partisan right-wingers fueling the... Pulse of Education. Published in the print issue of The New Yorker with the headline Class Warfare. School boards are being attacked by partisan saboteurs. Okay, so New Yorker is telling us that school boards are being attacked by partisan provocateurs. Do you think that's about the right wing? Does the left-wing media ever call left-wing activist partisan provocateurs? So much of what the left takes as objective, pragmatic, centrist, right, is really a partisan, highly partisan agenda. And people who decry that highly partisan agenda, they get called partisan. Written by Paige Williams. Narrated by Gabbers Ackman. In August 2020, Williamson County Schools, which serves more than 40,000 students in suburban Nashville, started using an English and language arts curriculum called Wind and Wisdom. The program, which is published by Great Mines, a company based in Washington, D.C., wasn't a renegade choice. Hundreds of school districts nationwide had adopted it. So this is an objective, non-partisan company just doing good work and bloody right-wingers are coming along to kind of ruin things for patriotic Americans, it sounds like. Both Massachusetts and Louisiana states with sharply different political profiles gave Wind and Wisdom high approval ratings. The decision had followed a strict process. The Tennessee State Board of Education governs academic standards and updates them every five or six years. Look, do I have a drink such as crystal light? Well, I brought about 150 packets of crystal light with me to Australia. I mean, it tastes crystal light classic orange. It tastes as good as fresh squeezed orange juice, but without the sugar. I mean, how can you not appreciate that? So I wasn't going to rock up to Australia for three months without having my crystal light and my favorite chewing gum. Providing school districts with an opportunity to switch curricula. Williamson County Schools assembled. Wow, breaking news. Howard Stern has left his house for the first time since COVID. Man, has this show gone downhill the last 10 years? The selection committee, 26 parents, 28 elementary school teachers of English and language arts. The committee presented four options to teachers who voted on them in February 2020. Wind and Wisdom was the overwhelming favorite. Okay, so we do know something about teachers. They do tend to be overwhelmingly on the left. It's not a criticism. That's just a description. So just because teachers overwhelmingly vote for something doesn't mean it's objective or what's best for the kids, right? Teachers do what's best for teachers. Kids try to do what they think is best for them. Parents do what's best for them. It's not shocking that teachers may select something that parents aren't thrilled about. After the selection committee ratified the teacher's choice, the school board, which has 12 members, unanimously adopted Wind and Wisdom, along with a traditional phonics program for K through 5 students. Great minds promotional materials explained that... So I just wanted to find a little spot here at the Kudgy Beach here in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. I think I'm out of the wind because I just set out to go for a walk. I didn't want to make another livestream. Seriously, I thought I pontificated enough. No need for me to make another livestream. But then I just found this New Yorker article so intellectually stimulating. So I subscribed to Apple News Plus for $10 a month. I have a great audio selection. And so I just started listening to their audio version of this New Yorker article and had so many flashing insights that I just had to share that are going to change life as you know it. Wisdom is designed to let students read books they love while building knowledge of important topics in literature, science, history, and art. By immersing students in content-rich topics that spark lively discussion, the curriculum prepares them to tackle more complicated texts. The materials are challenging by design. Studies have shown that students read better sooner when confronted with complex sentences and advanced vocabulary. Wind and Wisdom's 118 core texts, which range from picture books to nonfiction, emphasize diversity, but not in a strident way. Okay, so let's be clear. When you emphasize diversity, all right, whenever you push for advantages for one group, in situations like this, this always comes at a price to other groups, right? Being pro-diversity means you're anti the white Christian core of this country. So you are pushing to be pro one group and it's always at the expense of another group, right? Harvard tried to make the argument, yes, we consider race in admissions, but we never use it against people. Yeah, it's just pushing diversity not in a strident way. Look at these beautiful planes. We have the best planes here, don't we, folks? So pushing for diversity comes at the disadvantage of the white Christian core, right? Being pro-diversity means you're anti-core, just like if you're pro-core, you're anti-diversity. This is zero sum. They provide mirrors and windows, allowing readers both to see themselves in the stories. Yeah, come on, guys. They're pro-diversity, but not in a strident way. All they're doing is providing windows and mirrors. Like how could you be against a company that is providing instruction to our children? It is pro-diversity, but not in a strident way. And all they're doing is providing windows and mirrors. They're not indoctrinating kids, right? They're not being anti-white, right? They're not being anti-anyone, they're just being pro-everyone, they're just pro-radical love and inclusion. I hope you don't have a problem with this. To learn about other people's lives, the curriculum assigns or recommends portraits of heralded pioneers, Leonardo da Vinci, Sacajawea, Clara Barton. Wait, wait, wait. Who the hell is Sacajawea? Richard Spencer and Nick Fuentes are friends. I don't think so. So Richard went on Nick Fuentes' space about a week ago, and they were both amiable. But afterwards, from what I've heard, Fuentes then proceeded to trash Richard and then Richard trashed Nick. So I'm not sure that's correct, sir. Duke Ellington. Duke Ellington. Yeah, I'm afraid you might be pushing misinformation, bro. I'll be in your mirror, reflect what you are in case you don't know. Oh, Sacajawea is a Native American. Yeah, just hugely important. Look, it was people from England who created the United States of America. American Indians didn't create the United States of America because the United States of America is a government. It is an organized state. So Native Americans were here for thousands of years and they built almost nothing. They didn't build skyscrapers. They didn't build the internet. They didn't leave behind a vast body of literature. They didn't make important technological innovations. United States of America was created by the English overwhelmingly. Ada Lovelace. The lessons revolved. Ada Lovelace was she like some computer pioneer? Right. So all these diversity choices are not particularly important. You want to know about American history. You don't need any of these diversity choices. Like, why do people need to know about people who are very important at the expense of learning about people who are important? That sounds to me a little partisan and a little strident. So I comment in the chat after the Cronella race riots. Didn't the Prime Minister say this country was built by white Christians? If you don't like it, you can leave? Ah, I'm not aware of that. But do you see that boat out to sea? I think they're checking the shark nets to see if supposedly a lot of sharks around right now because of the rain. Yeah, not Linda Lovelace. I don't think they're teaching the children about Linda Lovelace. But yeah, a lot of she was in particular a bit skittish about going for a swim offshore. See alongside the Ramayana, a Sanskrit epic. Oh yeah, great. So they get to learn a Sanskrit epic that I've never heard of. I'm a pretty well read dude. Did with paintings, poetry, speeches, interviews, films and music. In the module, a hero's journey. Students explore and illustrating. The hero's journey. Rain attracts shark. Well, lots of rain washes stuff into the ocean, which supposedly brings sharks closer to shore. So I'm glad kids learning about the Odyssey, but is it really necessary to learn this Sanskrit thing? The retelling of the Odyssey alongside the Ramayana, a Sanskrit epic, while also discussing Star Wars. A section on word play pairs the phantom toll booth with Abbott and Costello's Who's on First Routine. Elsewhere in Tennessee, teachers were saying that wit and wisdom improved literacy. The superintendent of Lauderdale County, a rural area where nearly. Okay, so if wit and wisdom improves literacy, it's not going to be by a huge margin, right? Literacy is primarily a function of IQ and what messages you're getting from your home and your friends, what your peer group is like. And scientific studies have shown that certain people have an incredibly disruptive effect on the educational experience for the vast majority. So you just have to let in a few super predators into your schools and they can be tremendously disrupted and the educational experience for the overwhelming majority can be absolutely trashed. That's science. There's Julia Gillard. Julia Gillard, the the atheist left wing Labour Prime Minister. Interesting. Good old Julia. Quarter of the population lives below the poverty line. Published an essay reporting that his. Okay, if a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line means that a quarter of the population has an IQ under 95. Not a lot you can do for people with IQs under 95. This district's teachers had noticed an enormous difference in students' writing after implementing the curriculum. Okay, count me skeptical. Really? You think this curriculum stimulated an enormous difference in students' writing? Education academics are always stirring the pot, but the results are what we see. Now, I stand with our public schools. Like American public schools, when you account for race, do a good job educating kids. So I'm not anti-public schools or anti-teachers unions, just as a default. Widen Wisdom encourages students to discuss readings with their families. A father in Sumner County, northeast of Nashville, was pleased that his daughters now talked about civil rights and the American Revolution at dinner. Wow, it wouldn't be thrilled when their daughters start talking about civil rights over dinner. And then that would make me vell. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Widen Wisdom became the target of intense criticism at Ferd. And out of nowhere, they did absolutely nothing wrong. And then suddenly in 109 school districts, they started having problems with Widen Wisdom. When Widen Wisdom never did anything wrong, they were just a great curricula. But then these attacks just sprung out of nowhere. So I got a lot of sponsors, and I talked to the sponsors about when people are reacting very negatively to them and they're having a lot of adverse life consequences that are unexplainable, it's very likely that there's something that they've done, something they've said that has played a role in reactions. So generally speaking, that's my default. Usually, there's something you say or something you do that plays a significant role in how people react to you. Pretty radical, eh? There's the campaign in Williamson County was cryptic. Stray emails, phone calls, public information request. Whoa, a cryptic campaign. So that sounds really sinister, guys. I hope this isn't strident and partisan. Eric Welch, who was first... So when you're not on the left, right, and all the institutions, including the educational ones are controlled by the left, you often have to engage in cryptics, right? Haven't we learned how oppressed minorities have to engage in cryptics to disguise themselves so as to not be hurt by a cruel and vindictive majority? Why would this not apply here to conservatives? Maybe they've learned through life experience they need to be cryptic about what they stand for and how they plan to go about organizing for what they stand for, because the field on which they play is not level. Radical idea, right? Elected to the school board in 2010. Told me that the complainers wouldn't just email us. They would copy the county commission, our state legislative delegation, and state representatives in other counties. Whoa, these sound like civil rights tactics. These sound like left-wing tactics. How dare the right use left-wing tactics? I thought left-wing tactics should be the sole preserve of the left. How dare the right-wing start doing things that are effective, right? You wouldn't get this long New Yorker article about this partisan attack on school boards. Bloody hell, there's a B. If this right-wing attack wasn't effective, just like why all the media coverage over Rhonda Santa sending 60 illegal immigrants to Martha's Vineyard, because it was effective, it brought immigration back into the news. Bloody hell. He said it was obviously an attempt to intimidate. The school board. Okay, so does the left ever attempt to intimidate? Of course. Many people attempt to intimidate if they think that's a useful tactic. Sometimes it is, right? And to be intimidated, it requires two parties. One party that's willing to be intimidated, or one party that's been getting away with something, one party that's not received much scrutiny, now getting some scrutiny for the first time and feeling intimidated because they're used to just doing what they want, right? No justice, no peace. Isn't that the left-wing chant? That sounds a little intimidating to me. Am I missing something here? So it's only sinister when the right-wing becomes intimidating. Got it. Is an American institution whose members, until recently, enjoyed visibility on a par with that of the county tax collector? There's no glory in being a school board member, and there shouldn't be. Anne McGraw, a former Williamson County Schools board member, said, There's no glory in almost any objective endeavor, right? There's almost no objective glory in life. The glory in life that we feel, experience, is almost always a glory that we project on to our experience. So it's not unusual that being on a school board is not they're filled with glory. Virtually nothing in life is objectively filled with glory. So this doesn't make school boards unique and particularly selfless. On a local podcast last year, normally the district's public meetings were SIDDATE affairs featuring polite exchanges among civic-minded locals. The system- Guys, why can't we return to that? Why can't we have SIDDATE dialogue? Why can't we just have, you know, SIDDATE exchange of views? Why can't we just have government by discussion? Why can't all good people get together and reason things out in a rational way and arrive at mutually beneficial conclusions? So sad that we have to be so strident and partisan. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just go back to being SIDDATE and very civic about these things? And I'm all for being SIDDATE and civic and civil. Sometimes there are more important values, however, than being SIDDATE, civic and so no. Some slogan was, be nice. In May 2021, as the district finished its first academic year with wit and wisdom, women wearing... So be nice is frequently great advice, but frequently there are many more important values in various interactions than being nice. Moms for Liberty t-shirts began appearing at school board meetings. They brought large placards that contained images and text from 31 books that they didn't want students to read. In public comments and in written... Wait, wait, wait, wait. 31 books they didn't want students to read. You mean 31 books that they didn't want being assigned to students by the public school. It seems to me there's a bit of a difference here. I don't think these Moms for Liberty were for breaking into people's homes to remove these books. Simply didn't want these books being assigned by their public schools. Complaints. The women claimed that wit and wisdom was teaching children to hate themselves, one another, their families and America. Okay, so if you push diversity, you're simultaneously disadvantaging the white Christian core. So, yeah, some people are being disadvantaged. Come on here. Rubba Tap Tap, an illustrated story about the Vaudeville-era tap dancer Bill Bojangles Robinson by the Caldecott metalists Leo and Diane Dillon, harped on skin color differences. A picture book about seahorses, which touched on everything from their ability to change color to the independent movement of their eyes, threatened to normalize that males can get pregnant by explaining that male seahorses give... So when oppressed peoples start speaking up for themselves, they don't always do it in a sedate, calm, civic, civil, even-handed, well-balanced, accurate, objective way. Right? You've got right-wing people who've previously not been involved in school boards and politics, suddenly getting involved for the first time, and they're not always doing it in a smooth, civil, sedate manner. That shouldn't be shocking, and it's not the most important thing. Now, this is from the New Yorker, the right-wing mothers, fueling the school boards. C'mon suspected a covert endorsement of gender fluidity. Greco-Roman myths, nudity, cannibalism. Venus emerges naked from the sea. Tantalus cooks his son. The moms kept attending school board meetings and issuing complaints. Curiously, though they positioned themselves... So if these moms hadn't gotten involved, then they would have been apathetic moms. But when they do get involved in their right wing, then they're partisan and they're uncivil and non-sedate. Got it. From the New Yorker, right-wing mothers fueling the school board wars. As traditionalists, they often borrowed woke rhetoric about the dangers of triggering vulnerable students. Readings about Ruby Bridges, who in 1961 became the first black child to attend an all-white school in New Orleans, exposed students to psychological distress because they described an angry white mom. Bridges, in a memoir designed for young readers, wrote, they yelled at me to go away. The moms also declared that though they admired Martin Luther King Jr.'s iconic line about judging others on the content of their character, the book Martin Luther King Jr. on the march on Washington was unacceptable because it contained historical photographs, segregated drinking fountains, firefighters blasting black Americans with hoses. That might make kids feel bad. The moms considered it divisive for wit and wisdom. Okay, so if the left gets to exercise a veto over things because this or that might make some kids feel bad, then why should the right not follow these tactics? To urge instructors to remind students that racial slurs are words people use to show disrespect and hatred toward people of different races. At one meeting, Welch watched stunned. As a moms member said, you are poisoning our children and wit and wisdom must go. Welch told me they went from zero to a hundred. Everything from them was aggressive and threatening in nature. He said it was not let's have a dialogue. It was here are our demands. When the women in t-shirts first showed up, Welch had never heard of moms for liberty. So the chat says the school system is insane. So in an insane world, when you react to an insane world, to an insane institution, you're always going to do it in a nice, civil, calm, sedate way. No. When you feel like your kids are being negatively affected, you're very likely to react in an intense way. And he didn't recognize its members. The group's leader, Robin Steenman, was in her early 40s with shoulder length blonde hair in coloring and build. She resembled Marjorie Taylor Greene. Board of Education members struggled to understand why she'd inserted herself into a matter that she resembles Marjorie Taylor Greene. Just to let you know she's a bad person. I didn't concern her. Steenman had no children. Oh, this woman has no children. Therefore, it doesn't concern her. Some people, some people have concerns greater than themselves and their own kids. Of course, what's going on for other kids should concern you. Yes, use your NPR voice at all times, guys. There's notion that what goes on in schools doesn't concern you because you don't have kids. That's bogus. I know this is controversial, but I believe the children are our future. And if you're pro-future, then you have reason to be interested in how children are instructive. You don't have to have kids have an interest in how schools are being operated and what kids are being taught. Children in the public schools. Moms for Liberty members soon escalated the conflict, publicly asserting that Williamson County Schools had adopted wit and wisdom hurriedly and in violation of state rules. So, yeah, it's Moms for Liberty that is escalating the situation, guys. It's nothing the school did, nothing about the curriculum that escalated the situation. It's all these pesky right-wing Mothers for Liberty, man. What a sinister group. The school board still wasn't sure what Moms for Liberty was. Who founded it? Who funded it? Nevertheless, the district assembled a reassessment team to review the curriculum and the adoption process. And what do you think that this assessment team is going to find? Think they're going to find that the district has serious flaws? Or you think they're going to find that the district just did pretty much everything right? That the district was just, you know, seeking the best for kids. And then this nasty partisan group comes along, like really starts bollocksing things up. So, at a public work session in June 2021, the team announced that after a preliminary review, it hadn't found any violations of protocol. Teachers had spent a full workday familiarizing themselves with Witten Wisdom before implementing it. As Jenny Lopez, the district's curriculum director explained, teachers actually had more time than they've ever had to look at materials. The superintendent, Jason Golden, urged his colleagues to take parental feedback seriously, including worries that certain Witten Wisdom content was too mature for young kids. For example, there were gruesome details in books about shark attacks and about war real concerns. Yet Golden found that she trusted the district's processes and concluded the overall success. Still, administrators decided to survey teachers quarterly about how the curriculum was working. They limited access to the gorier images in one Civil War book and imposed similar guardrails involving Hatchet, a popular young adult novel in which a character attempts suicide. Walk Two Moons, a novel by the Newberry Medal winner Sharon Crete. Okay, got off my haunches there. Let's see what's going on in the chat. Yeah, you don't let the accused be the judge and jury, right? There needs to be more outside regulation of these curriculum. District didn't do nothing wrong. Yeah, people think the school has a problem. Better let the school look into it. Okay, we need to find out more about these very sinister mums for liberty. This partisan right-wing attack on our schools, guys. About a daughter's quest to find her missing mother was eventually removed from the Williamson version of the program. Not because its content was deemed objectionable, but rather to adjust the pacing of one fourth grade module. Golden, who is tall and genial, told the board members, the overwhelming feedback that we got was, man, can't we just read something uplifting in fourth grade? And we felt the same way. At the work session, Golden shared one end of a conference table with Nancy Garrett, the board's chair. Garrett, who has rectangular glasses and a blonde bob, is from a family that has attended or worked in Williamson County Schools for three generations. She had won the chairmanship by unanimous vote the previous August. At one point, she asked an assistant superintendent who had overseen the selection and review of wit and wisdom, whether the concept of critical race theory had come up during the process. No, the assistant superintendent said. Okay, so critical race theory doesn't always go by the name critical race theory. Anti-Semitism doesn't always go by the name anti-Semitism. Anti- Gentilism doesn't always go by the name anti- Gentilism. No, anti-Witism doesn't always go by the name anti-Witism. But just because something hasn't come up in explicit language, all right, if it isn't being named, it doesn't mean that it's not influencing a curriculum, or it doesn't mean that it's not being smuggled into a curriculum, or it's simply disguising itself or engaging in krypsis. So this run the New Yorker, the right-wing mothers fueling the school board of wars. Moms for Liberty members were portraying wit and wisdom as critical race theory in disguise. Garrett found this baffling. CRT, a complex academic framework that examines the systemic ways in which racism has shaped American society, is explored at the university level or higher. As far as the board knew. Okay, so it's explored at the university level or higher, but then it never seeps back down to colleges and to high schools and to elementary schools. It doesn't seep into the media. It doesn't seep into wider society. It just simply is all the rage in parts of academia, but then doesn't affect anyone else or anywhere else in society. Count me skeptical. Williamson County Schools had never introduced the concept. Yet there had been such a deluge of references to it that Garrett had delved into her old emails in an unsuccessful attempt to identify the origins of the outrage. She told her colleagues, I guess I'm wondering what happened. In September 2020, four months after the murder of George Floyd. So I guess that what happened is that some right wing people woke up about the indoctrination going on in the schools. Two months before the presidential election and a month into Williamson County Schools use of wit and wisdom. Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist, appeared on Tucker Carlson's show on Fox News Okay, are there any left-wing activists? So, so far I'm only hearing about partisans and intemperate remarks and activists. They're all on the right and they're fueling the school board wars which are otherwise sedate public spirited civic-minded institutions. And called critical race theory an existential threat to the United States. Okay, so I think that's a dramatic overstatement. I don't think that critical race theory is an existential threat to the United States but it's an attention-grabbing phrase. And Christopher Rufo is an activist. He is an activist. Growing up like in the US, you learn about critical race theory just from life experience. It gets wild, says P Morton. Rufo capitalized on the fact that, given CRT's academic provenance, few Americans had heard of the concept. He argued that liberal educators under the bland banner of diversity were manipulating students into thinking of America not as a vibrant champion of democracy but as a shameful embodiment of white supremacy. As he framed things, there were no in-between positions. Rufo later called CRT the perfect villain, a term that connotes hostile, academic, divisive, race-obsessed, poisonous, elitist, anti-American views. Rufo found a receptive ear in President Donald Trump who was already ranting about the 1619 project, the collection of Times Magazine essays in which slavery is placed at the heart of the nation's founding. So guys, it's only critics of the 1619 project that rant. The 1619 project itself is some delusional rant. Completely disconnected from reality, making some tendentious partisan bogus point. It's only critics of 1619 who rant. On Twitter, Trump had warned that the Department of Education would defund any school whose classroom taught material from the project. Trump conferred with Rufo and banned federal agencies from conducting un-American propaganda training sessions involving critical race theory or white privilege. Trump said that Black Lives Matter protests were proliferating not because of anger over police abuses, but because of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools. And is he wrong about that? Because of the number of attacks of deadly police shootings on unarmed Black men. We were talking about 20 a year, 30 a year in the United States. So there's no evidence that the police in the United States are generally racist, right? Police in the United States have to deal with a small group of super predators who turn society upside down and commit astronomical amounts of crime. Whoa, Elliot Blatt's considering getting a blue check mark from a lawn musk. Do it, bro. I think we need to give a lawn our hearts, our minds, and maybe even like eight dollars in cash. That'd be pretty cool. I'd get to know someone who's got a blue check mark. I don't think I know anyone who's got a blue check mark. You'd be the first in the group to get a blue check mark. You'd be the leader. All right, right-wing moms fueling the school board wars, scary stuff from the New Yorker. Establishing a 1776 commission, he urged patriotic moms and dads to demand that schools stop feeding children hateful lies about this country. The American Historical Association condemned the administration's eventual 1776 report, highlighting its many inaccuracies and arguing that it attempted to airbrush history and elevate ignorance about the past to a civic virtue. Okay, so the American Historical Association just totally objective organization, guys. It's not like it's tilted to the left. It doesn't have any political agenda. These guys are just honest truth seekers and elevating lies to a civic virtue. I'm just curious are there times when believing in lies is a virtue? If you falsely believe there are positive things about your spouse or about your kids or about your family or your friends or your community, that's probably adaptive. And that's probably isn't a virtue. It's probably good for you. Yeah, there are tons of times in life where it is a virtue to believe lies. I believe the lie that what I'm doing now has significance. I believe the lie that what I'm doing now is important. I believe the lie that I'm dropping wisdom here on this live stream. I have an exaggerated sense of my own wisdom my own importance and that gives me the energy to make a few live streams. Otherwise, I'd just be walking along the cliffs here and listening to books and stuff. Back to the New Yorker. Nearly 900 school districts nationwide. Where am I greased? No, I'm not in Greece. I'm in Kudji. It's a suburb on the eastern suburbs of Sydney, Australia. So I'm on Australia's eastern shore. So I'm in the bottom south of Australia. I'm like 75% of the way down from the northern tip of Australia on the east side. I mean, it's biggest city of Sydney hanging out here by the ocean playing some New Yorker article and commenting on it. Our right wing mothers are fueling the school board wars. nationwide were soon targeted by anti-CRT campaigns many of which adopted language that closely echoed Trump's order not to teach material that made others So you never find like left wing activist campaign echoing the language of anyone higher up in the hierarchy. Like when the left does it's always completely individualized and unique. I am not sure I've ever been to Cannes. What's that song I've been to Bali to? I've never even been to Bali, mate. It's comfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex. In some red states, the vague wording was enshrined as law. Republicans filed what became known as anti-CRT bills. So it's pretty shocking that Republicans would try to enact laws that would lead to the thriving of their constituents, right? So the left is always enacting laws, but that's a good thing. But when the right enacts laws in the interests of its voters in the interests of the better society that they want to create well that's a sinister partisan thing, bros. Should be pretty concerned about this. Kind of right wing people going around making laws. That's the sole province of the left. They were saying that cut and pasted from templates with similarly phrased references to such terms as divisive concepts and indoctrination. Williamson County Schools was uneventfully wrapping up its first term with wit and wisdom when in early December 2020, the American legislative. I have not been to Perth, never been to West Australia. Now at Rockhampton, I got a lot of family from Gladstone. I go back several generations of my family to Gladstone, which is central Queensland. And I'm going to visit Gladstone in a month or so. I have several generations there in central Queensland and I'm a regular listener to decoding the gurus. And there's a professor there at the University of Central Queensland, a psychology professor. It's one of the two hosts of that excellent podcast. Exchange Council, which generates model legislation for right-leaning lawmakers, hosted a webinar about reclaiming education and the American dream. All right, that seems fair enough. I mean, education is overwhelmingly in the hands of the left in the United States. And I suspect in most third world countries. So why would the right not want to reclaim education from the control of the left? Is that so wrong? A representative of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank, warned that elements of a Black Lives Matter curriculum were now in our schools. Rufo, correctly predicting that Joe Biden, then the president-elect, would abolish Trump's executive order, urged state legislators and governors to take up the fight. Continuing the agitation wasn't just an act of fealty to Trump. It was cunning politics. Is it possible that the quite and quite agitation is not just fealty to Trump or cunning politics, but something they actually believed in? All right, so here's a World War II story. There was a Black American officer in Gladstone who was driving drunk and killed an Australian. And his commanding officer came over and just shot the American on the spot, just shot him in the head. So that's part of the Gladstone law. Fear that CRT would cause children to become fixated on race has resonated with enough voters to help tip important elections. Last November, Glenn Junkin, a candidate for the governorship of Virginia, won an upset victory after- Sorry, I was just getting bit by a sand fly. And that interfered with the otherwise very smooth, cinematic experience I'm providing. He did the warning that the curriculum has gone haywire and promising to sign an executive order banning CRT from schools. Jatia Reiten, a political scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University, told the Washington Post that Junkin had activated white women to vote in a very specific way that they feel like is protecting their children. Days after the Alec webinar on reclaiming education- Man, that is so sinister. How dare white women try to protect their children? I mean, can you think of anything more scary than white women trying to protect their children? Why don't they just leave their children in the hands of trained professionals who've gone through certification and peer review? Like, how dare these white parents try to protect their kids? Frightening. Three women in Florida filed incorporation papers for Moms for Liberty Inc. Later declaring that their sole purpose was to fight for parental rights to choose what sort of education was best for their kids. Yeah, that's their sole purpose, right? Because this might be the first time in recorded history that people have said something which is not in exact 100% accord with what they really mean. Let's imagine that people filing papers who are 100% honest and open. Critical race theory is just way too much truth for America, says the chat. One of the organization's founders, Tina Deskovich, who had recently lost re-election to the school board of Brevard County, Florida after opposing pandemic safety protocols, soon appeared on Rush Limbaugh's show. Declaring plans to start with school boards and move on from there, she said of like-minded parents, it sounds a little melodramatic, but there is evil working against us on a daily basis. MAGA Media, Tucker Carlson tonight, Breitbart, showcased Moms for Liberty. Media Matters, the liberal watchdog, argued that influential right-wing media figures were essentially recruiting their eager audience for the Moms campaign. Moms for Liberty, which is sometimes referred to as M4L or MFL, is so new that it is hard to parse from public documents what its leaders are getting paid. The founders say that the chairs of local chapters are volunteers. The group describes itself as a grassroots organization, yet its instant absorption by the conservative media sphere has led some critics to suspect it of being an astroturf group, an operation secretly funded by- Wow, how sinister. Pretty scary stuff. It may not be a 100% organic group. That which is well-organized tends to have organizational heft behind it. Great organizations don't just spring up out of the earth. Bloody hell, this fly. This fly is going to die. I killed it. I got it. There. Try messing with me. It wouldn't leave me alone. I warned it. I said get out of here. You and me have got a problem if you come around here again. And the first time I had a whack at it, it got away. But not this time. I nailed it. I nailed that sucker. It's dead. It's gone. They'll never bite anyone again. The moneyed interests. Moms for Liberty registered with the IRS as the kind of social welfare non-profit that can accept unlimited dark money. The leaders had- Whoa. That sounds racist. Dark money. Like, why do you have to bring race into it? Like, why call the money dark money, man? That's not cool. How scary that these right-wing partisan mothers groups have dark money behind them. It's bringing up issues of miscegenation to my mind. They're trying to control my mind here with propaganda. Had deep GOP connections. One, Marie Rodgerson was a successful Republican political strategist. The other, Bridget Ziegler, a school board member in Sarasota County, is married to the vice chair of the Florida GOP. Christian Ziegler, who told the Washington Post, I have been trying for a dozen years to get 20 and 30-year-old females involved with the Republican Party. And it was a- Yeah, I think this New Yorker article is correct. There is Republican organizational money and organizing ability behind these groups because they are effective ways to get Republican-leaning women 20 to 30 active in politics. How scary. Put Liberty or Freedom in the name, Fire of Attack in America. But now Moms for Liberty has done it for me. Moms for Liberty worked with the office of Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, to help craft the state's infamous Don't Say Gay legislation, which DeSantis signed into law this past March. It forbids instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through grade three. How scary is that? You can no longer instruct kindergartners about sexual orientation or homosexuality. I mean, I just kind of imagine living in America where kindergartners don't get regular instruction in homosexuality like all the ins and outs. I mean, all the dirty details. What kind of fascist America is this? Scary New Yorker here. Or in a manner that is not age-appropriate. A national phalanx of interconnected organizations, including the Manhattan Institute, where Rufo is a fellow, and a group called Moms for America supported the suite of talking points about CRT. According to NBC News, in a single week last year, Breitbart alone published 750 posts or articles in which the theory was mentioned. Glenn Beck, the right-wing pundit, declared that CRT is a poison, urging his audience, stand up in your community and fire the teachers. Fire them. On March 15, 2021, Rufo, in a tweet thread, overtly described a key element of the far rights-evolving strategy. We have successfully frozen their brand critical race theory into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category. He added, the goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think critical race theory. Sounds good to me. Williamson County has some of Tennessee's top-ranked schools. That's why people move here, Eric Welch, the longtime school board member told me. I like it. He describes the school system as an economic asset that pays off. Williamson County has the state's second-lowest unemployment. Yeah, wow, that's a bold claim. He says that investing in our children is like investing in the future. What an amazing perspective. I would never have thought of that. Great. And the highest property values. The median home value exceeds $800,000. It is not a diverse place. 88% of residents are white. Oh, my God. 95% of the school district's teachers are white. Oh, no. Until September, all 12 school board members and the superintendent were white. A Confederate monument anchors the... In case you don't realize it, by now whites are bad people. All right, this is really scary stuff. All these white people just doing their own thing. Raising kids is anything best, which just can't allow this to happen. You need to put those kids in the hands of the experts. Literally. Where is the peer review? Town Square of the county seat, Franklin. The square was publicly marked as a former slave market only three years ago. The Confederate flag still flies prominently in some areas. When the white father of black children recently complained about this at a school board meeting, a man in the audience sneered, we're in the south. In 2018, several parents joined forces to point out that schools in Williamson County could work harder to be welcoming to children of color. The group, which became known as the Cultural Competency Council. So let's be clear here. If you make schools that are more welcoming to Jews, all right, they're going to be less welcoming to other groups. You make schools more welcoming to children of color, they're going to be less welcoming to other children, right? This is zero sum. You make schools that are more welcoming to core white Christian Americans, they're going to be less welcoming to diverse Americans, right? This isn't win, win, win. This is zero sum. Included black, Asian American, Jewish, and LGBTQ plus residents. A school district official who served as a liaison to the council created videos for teacher training and development, including one about privilege. That video's language had clearly been calibrated to preempt defensive reactions. A narrator underscored that the concept of privilege was not meant to suggest that someone has never struggled. Yeah guys, this is just a very moderate video about privilege, right? It wasn't intense, it wasn't extreme, right? It was just a very mellow video about privilege. Why would anyone have a problem with this mellow video about privilege? Or that success is unearned. Even so, the conservative media pounced. The Tennessee Star said... Right, let's be honest. A video about privilege is going to be anti-core American, the white Christian core. And so they reacted negatively. That the video took viewers on a guilt trip about the perks white males supposedly have that others do not. America's supposed dysfunctional history and how unfair it all is. Such views have played well in a county that Trump carried twice, both times by more than 20 points. The cultural competency council has been disbanded. In 2020, Ravita Rakhman and another parent co-founded an anti-racism group, One Will Co. after black parents chaperoning field trips to local plantations were astonished to see slavery depicted as benign. Rakhman told me that some presentations suggested that the slaves didn't really have it that bad. They lived better than we do. They had their food provided. They had housing. She added... Well, were these slaves always 100% better off after the end of the slavery? All right, these things are complicated. In some situations, slavery is better than freedom. Like everyone, every decent person is a slave to something higher than themselves. That I beg to differ. At a school that one of Rakhman's sons attended, some white classmates had mockingly linked arms as if to represent Trump's border wall. Oh no, that's just the worst. One Will Co. especially wanted the school system to address the fact that it had a record of disproportionately punishing students of color, a recent revelation. And that might not have anything to do with the behavior of students of color, right? They might not disproportionately be breaking the rules. All right, is that possible or is it just like white racism? Because when I look at crime statistics, I see that there are certain non-white groups that do disproportionately murder people. And it would make sense that when they were kids, these future murderers acted pretty badly. Moreover, some teachers used racially insensitive materials in their classrooms in an assignment about the antebellum economy. Students were instructed to imagine that their family owns slaves and to create a list of expectations for your family's slaves. Okay, I was about to make fun of something insensitive, but that is off the charts. Okay, even I would say that's insensitive and inappropriate. And I don't use that word inappropriate very often. That's horrible. On February 15th, 2021, the school board hired a mother and son team of diversity consultants to gauge the depth of the district's problems. Yeah, that's what schools need, more diversity consultants. That's what will make America win in the 21st century. We badly need more diversity consultants. Why spend money on math and English instruction when we can spend it on diversity consultants? With racism, bullying and harassment. And to recommend solutions. A conservative board member, Jay Galbraith, forwarded in for- So when I was growing up, there weren't any diversity consultants of which I was aware. I mean, think about how terribly deprived my childhood was without any diversity consultants. Oh, God forbid, God forbid that you want a few slaves. Information about the consultants to influential local Republicans, including Greg Lawrence, a county commissioner, and Bev Berger, a longtime alderman in Franklin. In an email, Lawrence complained to Galbraith that hiring the consultants was the type of thing that would lead to the politicization of teaching in America where every subject is taught through the lens of race. Yeah, when is the hiring of diversity consultants ever led to increased polarization and politicization? What a wacky thing. Hard to believe that people still think this way. Don't diversity consultants just increase love and inclusion in the world? He wrote, these young people who have been protesting, looting and burning down our cities in America are doing so because they don't see anything about America worth preserving. And why is that? Yeah, that and they're naturally wild. That many of them are super predators who for the good of society should probably be locked up sooner rather than later if they're committing major felonies. It's from moms fueling the school. Because our public schools and universities taught them that America is a systemically racist nation founded by a bunch of bigoted slave owning colonizers. This exchange was eventually made public through an open records request which also revealed that Burger had helped edit what has been called the foundational complaint against wit and wisdom. A month after the diversity consultants were hired, the parents of a biracial second grader emailed school officials to complain that the curriculum had caused their son to be ashamed of his white half. Burger wrote of her edits. See what you think. She sees Lawrence who forwarded the communications to Galbraith and another school board member Dan Cash, a fellow conservative who had won his seat in 2014 during a tea party wave. The county commissioner told the school board members, here is more evidence that we are teaching critical race theory and urge them to get rid of wit and wisdom. A few weeks later on March 22nd, the school board's monthly meeting took place on Zoom because of the pandemic. Robin Steenman appeared before the board for the first time. Wearing a cream colored sweater and dangly earrings, she presented herself simply as a concerned resident who wanted school officials to reject any diversity proposal that involved the 1619 project, critical race training, intersectionality. Right, so if you're pushing those things, you're very likely to be hostile to the white Christian core. So if you're part of the core, why would you want to have your schools pushing things that are hostile to you and to your interests? Bye-bye.