Monday, September 11, 2023

"Florida: Where Fascism Thrives," by Diane Ravitch

If you go to Dr. Diane Ravitch's blog post, the conversation is rich. I posted a few of the comments and exchanges below.

Everybody needs to hear this statement by Arnold Shwarzenegger. I have a blog on this—Arnold Schwarzenegger has a Powerful Message for Those Who Have Gone Down a Path of Hate [Youtube Video]where I post his video.

His main point is that fascists are losers.

-Angela Valenzuela

Florida: Where Fascism Thrives

by Diane Ravitch

Please, don’t make make America Florida! Fascism starts with book censorship. In this case, a world history must remove his personal books because they are not on the state’s approved list. A book without an ISBN number can’t be in the list. We may assume that The Constitution, the Bible, and The Federalist Papers do not have ISBN numbers.



  1. H.Hurley 

    This dedicated teacher’s HIGH ALERT 🚨 is beyond sad and frightening.
    Cooperate or being fired & a career damaged and lost.
    #TeachingInFlorida
    Today Florida, tomorrow the Nation!
    Hearing knee-high black boots marching and goose-stepping
    along cobblestone streets
    and BOE knocking at our classroom doors.
    Where to go?

  2. retired teacher 

    “Fascism rests on four pillars of charismatic leadership, Single party rule under dictator, terror and economic control,” according to some scholars.

    DeSantis lacks charisma, thank God, but he does have an unyielding, iron fist. He is hyper-partisan. He vilifies Democrats and would not meet with Biden even though he was offering support for Florida residents suffering from the impact of Hurricane Idalia. We have all witnessed the terror and economic control he has foisted on public education. He has stripped school boards of most powers. Instead of using librarians to help students, DeSantis is tying them up in an unreasonable, gargantuan task so he can censor reading material in public schools. It is all part of his plan to control that which he despises.

    • retired teacher 

      DeSantis is never the bigger man. That would be Joe Biden who knows how to conduct himself like a statesman. DeSantis is always the smaller, self-serving, mean-spirited tyrant. DeSantis is unfit to lead this nation. He is simply another con man.

    • It’s easy to see that DeSantis has the makings of a dictator. He doesn’t believe in democracy. I once saw a comment where he boasted that the Democratic Party in Florida was “road kill.” His goal is a one-party state with no dissent.

  3. Roy Turrentine 

    Time for some collective disobedience. Find the list of banned books. Organize “shelve-in’s” where teachers deliberately place banned books on their shelves. Invite the news. Get arrested.

    Most of my English teaching compatriots had extensive libraries. Asking for this type of oversight is both silly and unnecessary. Any student wanting to know about almost any perversion can access it on the net before FeSantis can say “liberal.”

  4. SomeDAM Poet 

    One good thing is that DeSantis has let everyone outside Florida know who he is.

    And as a result,he will never be elected President.

    He’s just another loser relegated to a long list of loser governors of Florida.

2 comments:

  1. The discussion on Dr. Diane Ravitch's blog is indeed thought-provoking. It's crucial to recognize the significance of free access to information and the potential consequences of censorship, as highlighted in the context of Florida.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Indeed. Censorship is what authoritarian governments do. This needs to stop.

    ReplyDelete