Lawmakers should leave decisions on school curriculum to the teachers
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
This is a quote from George Orwell’s “1984,” a book published in 1949 that is sadly relevant today. While “1984” is a work of fiction, it’s a cautionary tale that seems to be playing out today with censorship of books and governmentenforced bans on the teaching of certain things in several states.
Hiding from history does not make it go away or any less true. Sometimes, history is not something to be proud of, and yes, sometimes it rightly makes us uncomfortable. Yet that is often how learning is achieved.
In Chicago, all eighth graders and high school sophomores will learn about the decadeslong torture and abuse tied to disgraced former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge as part of a mandated Chicago Public Schools curriculum. I don’t think anyone could make a serious argument that learning about this makes a student hate the police. Rather, it explains what happened and how it went on for so long in hopes that it will never happen again.
In Germany, teaching about the
Holocaust and the Nazi era is mandatory in schools, and in addition to the classroom curriculum, almost all students have either visited a concentration camp or a Holocaust memorial or museum, according to a PBS “Frontline” report.
Germany wants to prevent denial of the Holocaust and ensure that this genocide never happens again. I’m a Jewish man whose family was affected by the Holocaust, and this topic is close to my heart. I know that “Never Again” is not just a slogan. It’s a mantra and a key to ensuring the slaughter of 6 million Jewish people will never happens again — or to anyone, anywhere.
Can you imagine the outrage if German politicians tried to outlaw these teachings because some claimed that such lessons give German children feelings of guilt or are divisive? Yet, some politicians in the U.S. are using those reasons as they pursue laws to stop schools from teaching about aspects of Black history and LGBTQ history.
Florida seems to be at the forefront of this trend, and Gov. Ron Desantis is getting a lot of backlash. But notably, more than two dozen states have adopted some sort of measure against the teaching
What, then, is the chief cause this time? The triggering factor of today’s economic problem is political/governmental malfeasance involving tariffs. The Constitution gives Congress the sole power “... to lay and collect taxes, duties ...” and tariffs. Presidents have been allowed by Congress to levy tariffs for a short time only if a “national emergency” existed.
President Donald
Trump’s mantras of “Make America Great Again” and “America First” gave him the impetus to apply tariffs on countries that were causing America’s very large trade deficit: Trump’s concept of a “national emergency.” China and India became the first of several individual countries (Canada and Mexico soon to follow) and then the European Union were all targeted by Trump via tariffs.
In March of 2018, a list of 1,300 Chinese imported products were hit with $50 billion in tariffs. When the Chinese retaliated with their own tariffs on American products,
Trump responded with $200 billion and later with $300 billion in tariffs. China’s reaction to this was the halting of all American agricultural products such as almonds, walnuts, wine, soybeans, grapes, apples and more.
Later, a 50% tariff replaced the full embargo. But a trade war was now in the making.
The next targets were tariffs on India’s steel and aluminum exports to America. Following China’s responses, India placed tariffs on numerous American imports. In
2019, India placed a 70% tariff on our almonds, walnuts and apples. As a result of Trump’s effort to mitigate this “national emergency,” the trade deficit, California nut growers lost their two largest buyers. India was the largest almond buyer in 2018/19 with $540 million representing about half of what India purchased in agricultural products. China’s purchase of California almonds fell by 33% in 2018/19.
Ironically, after five years, the Chinese exports to America have never been higher: $480 billion in
2018, $577 billion in 2021, and estimated to be about $612 billion in 2022, which would represent 18% of all American imports. America exported $151 billion products to China in 2021.
So, what’s the take away here?
Tariff terrorism was a colossal flop for Trump and it caused a huge amount of collateral damage to the rest of us. It will take a number of years for both the California almond and walnut commissions to rebuild the customer bases lost because of the tariffs. Already, the Australian almond growers have increased sales in Asia by 20 times. In both industries about 150,000 Californians are directly employed and jobs will be lost.
For the rest of the country, in 2018, the tariffs reduced the U.S. real income by $1.4 billion per month, equivalent to $1,200 a year per adult. And the tariffs on the Chinese products we bought cost the shopper $38.4 billion more in
2018; and this situation is starting its sixth year. When these numbers were
analyzed by Goldman Sachs and the Journal of Economic Perspectives in 2019, they concluded the tariffs represented “... one of the largest tax increases in decades
and if continued would wipe out all of Trump’s tax cuts it made in 2017 up to the 90th percentile in earnings – $185,000.
And who is to blame for this situation?
We are. We are the ones who elect individuals to the presidency and to Congress and we are not spending the time to evaluate all of our candidates for any elective office to make sure they have all of our best interests in mind and not just political or self interests. In the meantime, keep eating a lot more almonds and walnuts.
John Lewin is a Yuba
City resident and former longtime history teacher at Marysville High School. Lewin taught at the school from 1964-2003 and was the school’s social science department chairman for 25 years. In 2016, Lewin was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame with a lifetime recognition award.