Conspiracies - intentional and otherwise

What was it the Left raged against in the Cold War? "the vast military-industrial complex"?  Then in the Clinton era it became the "vast right-wing conspiracy." And for the apocalyptically minded, it's always been the "Illuminati-Rothschild-Rockefeller" triumvirate.

In the past I have always maintained that no matter how much these entities seem to be working in tandem, none of these so-called conspirators are really "together" enough to have thought it all up and pulled it off intentionally, at least not on a human level.  All such earthly alliances are corrupted by sin nature; one of the most common themes of literature is the betrayal of betrayers. And Scripture, of course, warns us: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." (Ephesians 6:12). I can believe that demons thought all this up, but humans are just too flaky.

That groundwork having been laid, my current favorite conspiracy is the "vast pseudo-intellectual media/academia/entertainment alliance." Their favorite causes defy reason on a cosmic scale:  loving whales and hating unborn humans, creating an ever-increasing welfare dependency as a sign of a healthy nation, maintaining a porous border and fostering self-loathing for America's history and heritage...I could go on and on.

But my little corner of the "rage market" concerns education, and last week the New York Times, as a public service, came out with a convenient lesson plan for American teachers to use in teaching children how to understand and relate to the current debt crisis. Someone at the Times has done his homework:  the lesson plans are classroom-ready, leave little work for the teacher to do, supply relevant news articles from the Times itself, correctly state objectives for the lesson in "educationese," show alignment to national and state standards, provide appropriate interactive participation techniques, and even spell out exactly what "open-ended" questions to ask. The problem is, (Surprise! Surpirse!) it's a bit slanted:

1.  For an emotional "opener," the teacher is instructed to tell the story of a Cowboy Poetry Festival in Nevada that will now lose its federal sponsorship. Poor cowboys!  Poor Nevada!  How do the mean Tea Party folks expect poetry to survive without government funding?
2.  In naming the areas where cuts were not made, the lesson uses the word "successful" to describe President Obama's resistance to cutting Planned Parenthood. Clearly something all school chidlren should rejoice about!
3.  Other cases of "non-neutral" language abound: "Newly empowered Republicans"  have agencies with benign -sounding names in their "cross hairs."  Planned Parenthood provides "family-planning services."  Students are directed to links to such "non-neutral" groups as the National Priorites Project, which educates citizens on how to help government "create budget priorities" (without a word about eliminating any budget categories). The board of the National Prioirities Project, by the way, is a Who's Who of the most liberal universities in America.
4.  Now it gets fun!  Students are asked to name all the ways that life will be affected (read "worse") when and if further cuts are made to:  Pell Grants,the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Head Start, Planned Parenthood, Medicare, Medicaid, Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts, along with home-heating aid, high-speed rail financing, housing assistance programs, discretionary money for education and clean energy programs
5.  Finally, and most importantly, no mention is made of: the Constitution, what constitutes a budget, the consequences of indebtedness, the history and purposes of taxation, or the American traditions of self-reliance, thrift, and hard work. And certainly no mention of the sacrifices made by past generations for the sake of liberty.    

Without expensive support from the New York Times Learning Network, here is a snapshot from the lesson plan I will be using with my students (in the "free world" of private education):

"If the US Government was a family, they would be making $58,000 a year, they spend $75,000 a year, and are $327,000 in credit card debt. They are currently proposing BIG spending cuts to reduce their spending to $72,000 a year. These are the actual proportions of the federal budget and debt, reduced to a level that we can understand." (from Dave Ramsey).