Politics & Government
Oregon’s Misguided, Distracting Chase Of Graduation Rates
Educating Future Voters To Recognize Truth From Lies Is The Business Of Education.
During our recent election for governor we voters were inundated with campaign advertisements of all sorts which set up a false argument about high school graduation rates as if they were not only the most important but the only criteria by which to judge accomplishment in education. Increasing the number of ignorant high school graduates is NOT and should NOT be a political objective. Learning to discern the TRUTH of any academic discipline is the mission of education.
80% of the taxpayers in Multnomah county do not have children in the Public School System. This is probably true for most if not all counties in Oregon. The most important educational outcome for those of us who pay the lion’s share of educating Oregon’s children is for them to be taught the difference between Fact and Opinion, and between Real and Fake news so that they will become critical thinking voters.
On January 22, 2019 the Oregon legislature will reconvene and have the same old arguments about the size of the public school budgets. Our governor, Kate Brown, will have the opportunity to encourage legislators to include budget instructions which would require testing all high school seniors on their ability to distinguish the difference between Fact and Opinion, and between Real and Fake news. The results and the testing methods should be made public.
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Why is this ability to tell the difference between Fact and Opinion, and between Real and Fake news so vitally important?
Watch this three-part film series, RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION: FROM COLD WAR TO KANYE
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Russia’s meddling in the United States’ elections is not a hoax. It’s the culmination of Moscow’s decades-long campaign to tear the West apart. “Operation InfeKtion” reveals the ways in which one of the Soviets’ central tactics — the promulgation of lies about America — continues today, from Pizzagate to George Soros conspiracies. Meet the KGB spies who conceived this virus and the American truth squads who tried — and are still trying — to fight it. Countries from Pakistan to Mexico are now debating reality, and in Vladimir Putin’s greatest triumph, Americans are using Russia’s playbook against one another without the faintest clue.
EPISODE 1
MEET THE KGB SPIES WHO INVENTED FAKE NEWS
We reveal how one of the biggest fake news stories ever concocted — the 1984 AIDS-is-a-biological-weapon hoax — went viral in the pre-internet era. Meet the KGB operatives who invented it and the “truth squad” that quashed it. For a bit.
EPISODE 2
THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS OF FAKE NEWS
The Pizzagate playbook: same tactics, new technologies. How the seven rules of Soviet disinformation are being used to create today’s fake news stories.
EPISODE 3
THE WORLDWIDE WAR ON TRUTH
Governments from Pakistan to Mexico to Washington are woefully unequipped to combat disinformation warfare. Eastern European countries living in Russia’s shadow can teach us how to start fighting back, but only if our politicians decide to stop profiting from these tactics and fight them instead.
Lest You Think We Americans Are Alone In This Disinformation Dilemma
Our cousins across the pond have been confronting their equivalent of electing Donald Trump, Brexit, with equal alarm. The political chaos at #10 Downing Street is equal to that of The White House. Citizens in America and Great Britain voted for “bread and circuses.” What they got was a dose of dysfunctional democracy with the real possibility of democratic disaster.
“For decades now, right-wing politicians and their allies on Fleet Street have been vilifying the E.U. and portraying its officials as meddling bureaucrats. During the referendum campaign, the Brexiteers misled the populace about how easy it would be to extract Britain from the union. They also lied about the economic benefits of leaving, claiming, for example, that it would generate billions of pounds a year to spend on the National Health Service.
Underlying this misinformation campaign was decades of social conditioning that warped the British psyche—and particularly the English psyche—into thinking that Britain was a place apart from, and superior to, the Continent.” *1
The Republican party in America has been spreading similar lies and misinformation here in America for decades. The result, Donald Trump.
What Goes Around Comes Around
Dear reader/voter/taxpayer:
If you have watched these three short videos and are moved to take action contact Nik Blosser in governor Brown’s office, nik.blosser@state.or.us and (503) 373-1565. Please let me know how you were treated.
I am particularly interested in hearing from School Board members who have placed an actionable item about this subject on the agenda and the results of the school board vote. Thank you.
Richard Ellmyer
North Portland
Author of The Ellmyer Report, a newsletter that informs, educates and influences on public policy. Occasionally distributed to more than a quarter of million readers in Oregon and beyond. Facebook, Portland Politics Plus .
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