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Jolie Rouge

03-02-2006, 01:29 PM

Indoctrination of our youth
Feb 22, 2006
by Walter E. Williams

http://townhall.com/opinion/column/walterwilliams/2006/02/22/187189.html

Let's start off with a few quotations, then a question. In reference to the president's State of the Union: "Sounds a lot like the things Adolf Hitler used to say." "Bush is threatening the whole planet." "[The] U.S. wants to keep the world divided." Then the speaker asks, "Who is probably the most violent nation on the planet?" and shouts "The United States!"

What's the source of these statements? Were they made in the heat of a political campaign? Was it a yet-to-be captured leader of al Qaeda? Was it French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin? Any "yes" answer would miss the true source by a mile. All of those statements were made by Mr. Jay Bennish, a teacher at Overland High School in Aurora, Colo.

During this class session, Mr. Bennish peppered his 10th-grade geography class with other statements like: The U.S. has engaged in "7,000 terrorist attacks against Cuba." In his discussion of capitalism, he told his students, "Capitalism is at odds with humanity, at odds with caring and compassion and at odds with human rights."

Regardless of whether you're pro-Bush or anti-Bush, pro-American or anti-American, I'd like to know whether there's anyone who believes that the teacher's remarks were appropriate for any classroom setting, much less a high school geography class. It's clear the students aren't being taught geography. They're getting socialist lies and propaganda. According to one of the parents, on the first day of class, the teacher said Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto" was going to be a part of the curriculum.

This kind of indoctrination is by no means restricted to Overland High School. School teachers, at all grades, often use their classroom for environmental, anti-war, anti-capitalist and anti-parent propaganda. Some get their students to write letters to political figures condemning public policy the teacher doesn't like. Dr. Thomas Sowell's "Inside American Education" documents numerous ways teachers attack parental authority. Teachers have asked third-graders, "How many of you ever wanted to beat up your parents?" In a high school health class, students were asked, "How many of you hate your parents?"

Public education propaganda is often a precursor for what youngsters might encounter in college. UCLA's Bruin Standard newspaper documents campus propaganda. Mary Corey, UCLA history professor, instructed her class, "Capitalism isn't a lie on purpose. It's just a lie," she continued, "[Capitalists] are swine. . . . They're ******* people." Professor Andrew Hewitt, chairman of UCLA's Department of Germanic Languages, told his class, "Bush is a moron, a simpleton, and an idiot." His opinion of the rest of us: "American consumerism is a very unique thing; I don't think anyone else lusts after money in such a greedy fashion." Rod Swanson, economics professor, told his class, "The United States of America, backed by facts, is the greediest and most selfish country in the world." Terri Anderson, a sociology professor, assigned her class to go out cross-dressed in a public setting for four hours. Photos or videotape were required as proof of having completed the assignment.

The Bruin Alumni Association caused quite a stir when it offered to pay students for recordings of classroom proselytizing. The UCLA administration, wishing to conceal professorial misconduct, threatened legal action against the group. Some professors labeled the Bruin Alumni Association's actions as McCarthyism and attacks on academic freedom. These professors simply want a free hand to proselytize students.

Brainwashing and proselytization is by no means unique to UCLA. Taxpayers ought to de-fund, and donors should cut off contributions to colleges where administrators condone or support academic dishonesty. At the K-12 schools, parents should show up at schools, PTAs and board of education meetings demanding that teachers teach reading, writing and arithmetic and leave indoctrination to parents. The most promising tool in the fight against teacher proselytization is the micro-technology available that can expose the academic misconduct.

Since 1980, Dr. Williams has served on the faculty of George Mason University in Fairfax, VA as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics.

Jolie Rouge

03-02-2006, 01:31 PM

This story is big here in Denver : A 16-year-old World Geography student, Sean Allen, taped his Bush-bashing, capitalism-hating high school teacher's screeching diatribe.

Here's the audio. You have to listen to believe it. http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME...47-c589c01ca7bf

The teacher has been put on leave. I think he needs medical help. (Hat tip: Tony J.)
Via the Rocky Mountain News: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/loca...4508296,00.html

An Overland High School geography teacher was put on leave Wednesday while Cherry Creek Schools investigates whether he violated district policy that requires balanced viewpoints in the classroom.

Jay Bennish, who teaches 10th grade world geography, is being investigated for making biased, anti-President Bush comments in class during a discussion of the State of the Union speech last month.

"These are serious allegations and we're very concerned about it," said Tustin Amole, spokeswoman for Cherry Creek Schools. "This does not reflect the type of teaching that we want to see in Cherry Creek school district."

Bennish could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.

On Feb. 1, Bennish, who has been at Overland High School since the fall of 2000, had a discussion in his class about the State of the Union address.

Sean Allen, a student in the class, taped the discussion, in which Bennish made a number of unfavorable comments about Bush that upset Allen's father.

"He said that some people may compare (Bush) to Hitler," Amole said.

The school district did not learn about Bennish's lecture until last Wednesday, when it received an e-mail about it from an out-of-state person who had seen an online column on it written by Walter Williams on www.townhall.com, Amole said. That same day, Allen's father also called the principal of Overland High School to complain about the teacher, and the complaint was forwarded to the district, which began its investigation.

"After listening to the tape, it's evident the comments in the class were inappropriate," Amole said. "There were not adequate opportunities for opposing points of view."

Allen's father apparently gave a copy of the taped discussion to KOA radio host Mike Rosen, who did a show on the subject Wednesday.

Denver Post coverage here : http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3560566

Teacher caught in Bush "rant"
The Overland High educator is on administrative leave. Cherry Creek's superintendent said a balanced viewpoint will be given to students.
By Karen Rouse Denver Post Staff Writer

Students at Overland High School protest on Thursday Mar. 2, 2006, during a walkout. The student were supporting a teacher, Jay Bennish, placed on leave for his comments about President Bush.

An Overland High School teacher who criticized President Bush, capitalism and U.S. foreign policy during his geography class was placed on administrative leave Wednesday afternoon after a student who recorded the session went public with the tape.

In the 20-minute recording, made on an MP3 player, teacher Jay Bennish described capitalism as a system "at odds with human rights." He also said there were "eerie similarities" between what Bush said during his Jan. 28 State of the Union address and "things that Adolf Hitler used to say."

The United States was "probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth," Bennish also said on the tape.

Bennish, who has been part of Overland's social studies faculty since 2000, did not return calls seeking comment Wednesday. Cherry Creek School District officials are investigating the incident, but no disciplinary action has been taken, district spokeswoman Tustin Amole said.

Bennish was placed on leave "to take some of the pressure off of him" during the investigation, which could wrap up in a week, Amole said.

Superintendent Monte Moses, who received a copy of the recording on Monday from 850 KOA-AM radio show host Mike Rosen, said it appears "a breach of district policy" occurred.

"Our policy calls for both sides to be present in the interest of intellectual discourse," Moses said. Bennish's presentation appeared to be unbalanced, he said.

The district is looking into whether the incident was an isolated one and will ensure that a balanced viewpoint of the president's State of the Union address is provided to students, Moses said.

Moses also said the district will be fair to Bennish. "People in life make mistakes occasionally," he said. "We address them. We learn from them."

The 20-minute recording of only a portion of the class was made by 16-year-old sophomore Sean Allen the day after the president's speech. The recording has raised questions about what level of academic freedom is acceptable for high school teachers. It also has generated discussions about Bennish on dozens of websites.

Sean, who appeared on Rosen's show Wednesday morning, said in an interview he had been disturbed by the "political rants" he heard in Bennish's class. He added that he wanted to tape the session for his father, who later shared it with the media.

Sean, who described himself as a political independent, said the comments seemed inappropriate for a geography class.

"If he wants to give an opinion in class, I'm perfectly OK with that," he said. "But he has to give both sides of the story."

James McGrath Morris, an author who has written about academic freedom issues, said Bennish's comments are acceptable for an adult audience, but they are hard to defend in a high school classroom.

In a number of legal cases, courts have ruled that "up until the age of majority, children are easily influenced ... in a way that they don't have the faculties to sort out rights from wrongs," Morris said.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3560566

Jolie Rouge

03-02-2006, 01:37 PM

Here's the audio. You have to listen to believe it. http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?...47-c589c01ca7bf

transcribtion :

Bennish: [tape begins with class already underway. Bennish completing an unintelligble statement about Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.] Why do we have troops in Colombia fighting in their civil war for over 30 years. Most Americans don't even know this. For over 30 years, America has had soldiers fighting in Colombia in a civil war. Why are we fumigating coca crops in Bolivia and Peru if we're not trying to control other parts of the world. Who buys cocaine? Not Bolivians. Not Peruvians. Americans! Ok. Why are we destroying the farmers' lives when we're the ones that consume that good.

Can you imagine? What is the world's number one single cause of death by a drug? What drug is responsible for the most deaths in the world? Cigarettes! Who is the world's largest producer of cigarettes and tobacco? The United States!

What part of our country grows all our tobacco? Anyone know what states in particular? Mostly what's called North Carolina. Alright. That's where all the cigarette capitals are. That's where a lot of them are located from. Now if we have the right to fly to Bolivia or Peru and drop chemical weapons on top of farmers' fields because we're afraid they might be growing coca and that could be turned into cocaine and sold to us, well then don't the Peruvians and the Iranians and the Chinese have the right to invade America and drop chemical weapons over North Carolina to destroy the tobacco plants that are killing millions and millions of people in their countries every year and causing them billions of dollars in health care costs?

Make sure you get these definitions down.

Capitalism: If you don't understand the economic system of capitalism, you don't understand the world in which we live. Ok. Economic system in which all or most of the means of production, etc., are owned privately and operated in a somewhat competitive environment for the purpose of producing PROFIT! Of course, you can shorten these definitions down. Make sure you get the gist of it. Do you see how when, you know, when you're looking at this definition, where does it say anything about capitalism is an economic system that will provide everyone in the world with the basic needs that they need? Is that a part of this system? Do you see how this economic system is at odds with humanity? At odds with caring and compassion? It's at odds with human rights.

Anytime you have a system that is designed to procure profit, when profit is the bottom motive -- money -- that means money is going to become more important potentially than what? Safety, human lives, etc.

Why did we invade Iraq?! How do we know that the invasion of Iraq for weapons of mass destruction-- even if weapons had been found, how would you have known, how could you prove--that that was not a real reason for us to go there.

There are dozens upon dozens of countries that have weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is one of dozens. There are plenty of countries that are controlled by dictators, where people have no freedom, where they have weapons of mass destruction and they could be potentially threatening to America. We're not invading any of those countries!

0345.

[Pause.]

I'll give you guys another minute or two to get some of these [definitions] down. I agree with Joey. Try to condense these a little bit. I took these straight out of the dictionary.

Anyone in here watch any of Mr. Bush's [State of the Union] speech last night? I'm gonna talk a little about some of things he had to say.

0452

...One of things that I'll bring up now, since some of you are still writing, is, you know, Condoleezza Rice said this the other day and George Bush reiterated it last night. And the implication was that the solution to the violence in the Middle East is democratization. And the implication through his language was that democracies don't go to war. Democracies aren't violent. Democracies won't want weapons of mass destruction. This is called blind, naive faith in democracy!

0530.

Who is probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth?!

Unidentified student interjects: We are.

The United States of America! And we're a democracy. Quote-unquote.

Who has the most weapons of mass destruction in the world? The United States.

Who's continuing to develop new weapons of mass destruction as we speak?!
The United States.

So, why does Mr. Bush think that other countries that are democracies won't wanna be like us? Why does he think they'll just wanna be at peace with each other?! What makes him think that when the Palestinians get their own state that they won't wanna preemptively invade Israel to eliminate a potential threat to their security just like we supposedly did in Iraq?! Do you see the dangerous precedent that we have set by illegally invading another country and violating their sovereignty in the name of protecting us against a potential future--sorry--attack? [Unintelligible.]

0625.

Why doesn't Mexico invade Guatemala? Maybe they're scared of being attacked. Ok. Why doesn't North Korea invade South Korea?! They might be afraid of being attacked. Or maybe Iran and North Korea and Saudi Arabia and what else did he add to the list last night - and Zimbabwe - maybe they're all gonna team up and try and invade us because they're afraid we might invade them. I mean, where does this cycle of violence end? You know?

This whole "do as I say, not as I do" thing. That doesn't work. What was so important about President Bush's speech last night--and it doesn't matter if it was President Clinton still it would just as important) is that it's not just a speech to America. But who? The whole world! It's very obvious that if you listen to his language, if you listen to his body language, and if you paid attention to what he was saying, he wasn't always just talking to us. He was talking to the whole planet. Addressing the whole planet!

He started off his speech talking about how America should be the country that dominates the world. That we have been blessed essentially by God to have the most civilized, most advanced, best system and that it is our duty as Americans to use the military to go out into the world and make the whole world like us.

0759.

Sounds a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler use to say.

We're the only ones who are right. Everyone else is backwards. And it's our job to conquer the world and make sure they live just like we want them to.

Now, I'm not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same. Obviously, they are not. Ok. But there are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use. Very, very "ethnocentric." We're right. You're all wrong.

I just keep waiting. You know, at some point I think America and Mexico might go to war again. You know. Anytime Mexico plays the USA in a soccer match. What can be heard chanting all game long?

0841

Do all Mexicans dislike the United States? No. Do all Americans dislike Mexico? No. But there's a lot of resentment--not just in Mexico, but across the whole world--towards America right now.

We told--Condoleezza Rice said--that now that Hamas got elected to lead the Palestianians that they have to renounce their desire to eliminate Israel. And then Condoleezza Rice also went on to say that you can't be for peace and support armed struggle at the same time. You can't do that. Either you're for peace or war. But you can't be for both.

What is the problem with her saying this? That's the same thing we say. That is exactly the same thing this current administration says. We're gonna make the world safe by invading and killing and making war. So, if we can be for peace and for war, well, why can't the Palestinians be for peace and for war?!

0950.

continues ...

Jolie Rouge

03-02-2006, 01:38 PM

continues ....

*Student Sean Allen, who is taping Bennish's rant, speaks up:*

Allen: Isn't there a difference of, of, having Hamas being like, we wanna attack Israelis because they're Israelis, and having us say we want to attack people who are known terrorists? Isn't there a difference between saying we're going to attack innocents and we're going to attack people who are not innocent?

1007

Bennish: I think that's a good point. But you have to remember who's doing the defining of a terrorist. And what is a terrorist?

Allen: Well, when people attack us on our own soil and are actually attempting to take American lives and want to take American lives, whereas, Israelies in this situation, aren't saying we want to blow up Palestine...

Bennish: How did Israel and the modern Israeli state even come into existence in the first place?

Allen: We gave it to them.

Bennish: Sort of. Why? After the Israel-Zionist movement conducted what? Terrorist acts. They assassinated the British prime minster in Palestine. They blew up buildings. They stole military equipment. Assassinated hundreds of people. Car bombings, you name it. That's how the modern state of Israel was made. Was through violence and terrorism. Eventually we did allow them to have the land. Why? Not because we really care, but because we wanted a strategic ally. We saw a way to us to get a hook into the Middle East.

If we create a modern nation of Israel, then, and we make them dependent on us for military aid and financial aid, then we can control a part of the Middle East. We will have a country in the Middle East that will be indebted to us.

Allen: But is it ok to say it's just to attack Israel? If it's ok to attack known terrorists, it's ok to attack Israel?

Bennish: If you were Palestinians, who are the real terrorists? The Israelis, who fire missiles that they purchased from the United States government into Palestinian neighborhoods and refugees and maybe kill a terrorist, but also kill innocent women and children. And when you shoot a missile into Pakistan to quote-unquote kill a known terrorist, and we just killed 75 people that have nothing to do with al Qaeda, as far as they're concerned, we're the terrorists. We've attacked them on their soil with the intention of killing their innocent people.

Allen: But we did not have the intention of killing innocent people. We had the intention of killing an al Qaeda terrorist.

Bennish: Do you know that?

Allen: So, you're saying the United States has the intention to kill innocent people?

Jolie Rouge

03-02-2006, 01:43 PM

Students protest teacher's suspension
By Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News
March 2, 2006

Overland High School students protest today, some in support and others against, a teacher who was at the center of a controversy over statements he made comparing President Bush to Adolf Hitler.

Hundreds of students walked out of Overland High School this morning in protest after a controversy involving a geography teacher and his statements about President Bush.
Many of the students supported the teacher, Jay Bennish, who was placed on paid leave pending an investigation into his comments by the Cherry Creek School District.

"Freedom of speech — Let him teach," students chanted after they streamed out of the school, located at 12400 E. Jewell Ave., and crossed a pedestrian bridge to a park.

Bennish's talk about Bush's State of the Union speech was recorded by a student, Sean Allen, who took it to KOA talk show host Mike Rosen. In the recording, Bennish made a number of comments about Bush, including one in which he said he could be compared to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

But a large number of students who walked out of the Aurora school this morning supported Allen with chants of their own.

"Teach, don't preach," they chanted.

The demonstration was peaceful, and the vast majority of students returned to class without incident. A small group of Bennish supporters stayed in the park, chanting and waving, before eventually heading back to school.

School district officials have said that Bennish's comments were inappropriate and did not include opposing points of view.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4508688,00.html

LOL - when I was in HS we would have protested the chips in the snack machine if it meant we got to spend half a day out of class

Teacher on leave after comments
District cites policy requiring balanced views in classroom
By Tillie Fong, Rocky Mountain News
March 2, 2006

An Overland High School geography teacher was put on leave Wednesday while Cherry Creek Schools investigates whether he violated district policy that requires balanced viewpoints in the classroom.

Jay Bennish, who teaches 10th grade world geography, is being investigated for making biased, anti-President Bush comments in class during a discussion of the State of the Union speech last month.

"These are serious allegations and we're very concerned about it," said Tustin Amole, spokeswoman for Cherry Creek Schools. "This does not reflect the type of teaching that we want to see in Cherry Creek school district."

Bennish could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.

On Feb. 1, Bennish, who has been at Overland High School since the fall of 2000, had a discussion in his class about the State of the Union address.

Sean Allen, a student in the class, taped the discussion, in which Bennish made a number of unfavorable comments about Bush that upset Allen's father.

"He said that some people may compare (Bush) to Hitler," Amole said.

The school district did not learn about Bennish's lecture until last Wednesday, when it received an e-mail about it from an out-of-state person who had seen an online column on it written by Walter Williams on www.townhall.com, Amole said. That same day, Allen's father also called the principal of Overland High School to complain about the teacher, and the complaint was forwarded to the district, which began its investigation.

"After listening to the tape, it's evident the comments in the class were inappropriate," Amole said. "There were not adequate opportunities for opposing points of view."

Allen's father apparently gave a copy of the taped discussion to KOA radio host Mike Rosen, who did a show on the subject Wednesday.

Since then, a number of parents have called the school about Bennish's remarks, both in support and in opposition.

Amole said that Bennish told school officials he had received threats as a result of the controversy.

Amole said that the ensuing brouhaha over Bennish's lecture has become disruptive to the school, which led to Bennish's being put on leave Wednesday.

"We felt it was better for all concerned if he was out of class," she said. "This is not a punishment at this point."

In the meantime, the district is investigating whether Bennish violated its policy on teaching about controversial and sensitive subjects, and has reminded teachers about the policy. "We do want teachers to express their opinions, but to put that in context and to provide opposing points of view," Amole said. "All discussion must be fair and balanced."

District officials have been talking to Bennish and his students as part of the investigation.

"We want to find out all the facts, what other students have to say about it, whether there have been other incidents," Amole said.

Amole said the district hopes to complete its investigation of Bennish this week.

Apparently, this is not the first time he has been in hot water over comments made in class, according to Amole.

A few years ago, another student complained about remarks Bennish made in class. In that case, Bennish met with the parent and the school principal, and the issue was resolved without district intervention.

Amole could not provide details Wednesday of the earlier incident, but said the district encourages students and parents to voice their concerns.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4508296,00.html

TexasGal

03-02-2006, 02:09 PM

I don't think this was appropriate for a high school class without also introducing opposing arguments, but personally, I tend to agree with much of what he said. ;)

stresseater

03-02-2006, 04:22 PM

Again I say I love my little small town school. The townspeople would string a teacher up on the flag pole for something like this. You won't hear and cockamamie crap like this out here. :D

Jolie Rouge

03-03-2006, 10:17 PM

The transcript of the audiotape below is now complete. A sample from the latter half of the tape:

Teacher Jay Bennish: If you were Palestinians, who are the real terrorists? The Israelis, who fire missiles that they purchased from the United States government into Palestinian neighborhoods and refugees and maybe kill a terrorist, but also kill innocent women and children. And when you shoot a missile into Pakistan to quote-unquote kill a known terrorist, and we just killed 75 people that have nothing to do with al Qaeda, as far as they're concerned, we're the terrorists. We've attacked them on their soil with the intention of killing their innocent people.
1215

Student Sean Allen: But we did not have the intention of killing innocent people. We had the intention of killing an al Qaeda terrorist.

Bennish: Do you know that?

Allen: So, you're saying the United States has intentions to kill innocent people?

Bennish: I don't know the answer to that question.

Allen: But what gain do we get from killing innocent people in the Middle East? What gain does that pose to us?

Bennish: Let me ask you this. During the 1980s, Iran and Iraq were involved in an 8-year-long war. The United States sold missiles, tanks, guns, planes, to which side?

Unidentified student: Iraq?

Bennish: Both. The answer is both. Why would we send armaments to two sides that are fighting each other. That seems to be self-defeating. Don't we want one side to win? Not always! Sometimes you just want there to be conflict!

The British -- this is one of the grand strategies of the British imperial system--was to play local animosities off each other. To prevent them is to divide and conquer.

Do we really want the Middle East to unite as one cohesive political and cultural body?

No! Because then they could what? Threaten our supremacy.

We want to keep the world divided. Do we really want to kill innocent people? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that.

I know there are some Americans who do. People who work in the CIA. People who have to think like that. Those kind of dirty minds, dirty tricks. That's how the intelligence world works. Sometimes you do want to kill people just for the sake of killing them. Right?

[b]Friday, March 03, 2006
Dissecting a Rant
(Hat tip: Little Green Footballs)

Not only is he unhinged, he’s wrong too.

You’ve probably heard about the anti-American rant by Colorado geography teach Jay Bennish. Jay has been suspended, rightfully so in my mind, for his wholly inappropriate diatribe against the US. It used to be that we taught students to be good citizens; now we don’t even teach them the facts.

Michelle Malkin has transcribed the majority of the rant for us, so let’s look at some the statements that Jay makes.

Statement: “For over 30 years, America has had soldiers fighting in Colombia in a civil war.”

Fact: US military involvement in Colombia began in the 1980's.

Statement: “Who buys cocaine? Not Bolivians. Not Peruvians. Americans! Why are we destroying the farmers' lives when we're the ones that consume that good.”

Fact: Bolivian and Peruvians smoke coca paste.

Statement: "Who is the world's largest producer of cigarettes and tobacco? The United States!"

Fact: China is the largest, followed by India and Brazil. Depending on how you measure it, the largest tobacco company is either Phillip Morris, BAT, or China National. Brazil is the largest exporter.

Statement:“What part of our country grows all our tobacco? Anyone know what states in particular? Mostly what's called North Carolina.“

Fact: North Carolina is responsible for 37% of the tobacco grown in the US.

Statement: “don't the Peruvians and the Iranians and the Chinese have the right to invade America and drop chemical weapons over North Carolina to destroy the tobacco plants”

Fact: We sell very little, if any tobacco to Peru, Iran and China.
We actually import about 50% our tobacco.

Statement: “killing millions and millions of people in their countries every year”

Fact: Annual worldwide deaths from smoking are around 5 million. I doubt that Peru and Iran account for the majority of those. Muslims aren't even supposed to smoke. My guess is that China probably sells us more tobacco than we sell to them.

Statement: “Who has the most weapons of mass destruction in the world? The United States.”

Fact: For many years, the Soviet Union had the most.

Russia most likely still has more weapons of mass destruction than the United States.
Russia is estimated to now have around 20,000 nuclear weapons.

During the Cold War, and afterwards, the Soviet Union had the world's largest arsenal of chemical weapons, including artillery shells, bombs, and missiles...

financial and other difficulties have impeded the destruction of its chemical weapons stockpile, so it is far behind the timetable specified in the treaty.

...the United States maintains a sizeable arsenal of nearly 10,000 nuclear warheads, of which nearly 6,000 are operational and the remainder in reserve or inactive stockpiles.

The entire U.S. [biological warfare] stockpile was destroyed in 1969 and 1970...

The NSCMP also destroyed 80% of the nation's original chemical weapons production facilities in 2003, 16 months ahead of schedule, and will meet the final deadline of 100% destruction by April 2007.

Statement: “There are dozens upon dozens of countries that have weapons of mass destruction.”

Fact: 15-20, depending on who is counting and how.

Statement: They [Israel] assassinated the British prime minister in Palestine.

Fact: I assume he’s talking about Lord Moyne, Minister Resident for the Middle East, who was assassinated in Cairo, Egypt in 1944.

Statement: Israeli terrorists used "Car bombings, you name it".

Fact: One truck bomb, actually (1/4/1948).

Statement: "And when you shoot a missile into Pakistan to quote-unquote kill a known terrorist, and we just killed 75 people that have nothing to do with al Qaeda,"

Fact: 18 killed, including al Qaeda affiliates.

Statement: In the Iran-Iraq war, we sold missiles, tanks, guns and planes to both sides.

Fact: We sold missiles to Iran as a part of the Iran-Contra debacle.

Statement: US conducted 7000 terrorist attacks against Cuba in two years, 1960 to 1968.”

Fact: He can’t even get his Radio Havana propaganda right. (Apparently it’s 5780 over 30 some years. Who knew?)

Statement: The FBI had an office in the World Trade Center

Fact: I can’t find any confirmation of this.

Statement: The Clinton ordered Sudan attacks destroyed the largest pharmaceutical plant.

Fact: I could not confirm the size of the plant destroyed.

Update from Dignan: Welcome Michelle Malkin, Hugh Hewitt, Daily Kos, and Mount Virtus readers. I'd like to make a few comments. Big thanks to my co-conspirator and friend Klaus for taking the time to write this outstanding post (you are the "B-Squad" leader, Klausie!) Also, big thanks for all of those commenting here. Although we here at the 75 Year Plan lean right, we very much appreciate and encourage dialog with those on the left. So we hope those on the left come back for more good dialogue. Finally, I would like to voice my own outrage at Bennish from my particular background. I actually majored in geography in college and have spent most of my professional life in geography-related jobs. Regardless of the political nonsense that Bennish has promoted, he obviously knows nothing about geography and geography education.

http://lawnrangers.blogspot.com/2006/03/dissecting-rant.html

Jolie Rouge

03-03-2006, 10:25 PM

... but personally, I tend to agree with much of what he said. ;)

The general tenor not the mis-information and distorted facts ?

Jolie Rouge

03-03-2006, 10:34 PM

Bennish Plans Federal Lawsuit To Go Back To Work
Katherine Blake

(CBS4) AURORA, Colo. The high school geography teacher placed on paid leave for comments he made during a class lecture about President Bush plans to file a lawsuit Friday to get back to work. Jay Bennish's comments were recorded by a student who said he tapes lectures to help with notes.

"Now I'm not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same, obviously they're not, OK," Jay Bennish was heard saying on a recording of his class lecture on the day after Bush's State of the Union Address. "But there are eerie similarities to the tones that they use."

Bennish's lawyer said the teacher's goal is to provoke students to think for themselves. The attorney said Bennish sees himself as a patriotic American and just wants to get back to teaching.

"He's terribly upset about the fact that he can't teach right now," David Lane, Bennish's attorney said Thursday night. "He's so upset that I am now his lawyer and we are going to Federal court tomorrow."

Lane argued that the Cherry Creek School District has no right to place Bennish on paid administrative leave from Overland High School

"No action should be taken against someone who is exercising their rights under the First Amendment," Lane said.

Sean Allen, the student who recorded the lecture, brought Bennish's comments to the attention of an online columnist and radio talk show hosts.

"He is not teacher of geography," Allen said during a radio talk show on Wednesday evening. "About 80 percent of the time, he's teaching his biased political opinions and giving them to our class as a fact."

Allen didn't attend class Thursday after getting negative feedback to his actions from fellow students. At the school Thursday, dozens of students walked out in support of Bennish. Other students said they thought Allen did the right thing and that Bennish should "teach, not preach."

The Cherry Creek School District has said it is investigating Bennish's comments and hoped to have a final decision by late next week.

http://cbs4denver.com/topstories/local_story_062081133.html

{{Note : Bennish was reprimanded in 2002 for similar complaints****

POLL : Should teacher Jay Bennish be fired for comments he made about President Bush?

YES : 21%
NO : 70%
SUSPENDED : 9%
NOT SURE : 1%

I think the poll is worded in a way to get the answer they wanted. He violated School Board policy, has been reprimanded for similar actions before, and - if you really look into his diatribe - doesn't even get his facts straight.

Jolie Rouge

03-03-2006, 10:47 PM

Historians vs. History
By Jacob Laksin -- FrontPageMagazine.com
March 3, 2006

There were heated denunciations of the American government, angry pleas for the immediate arrest of American imperialism, and widespread support for more aggressive political activism to resist the injustices daily perpetrated by America abroad and at home. It was no run-of-the-mill anti-war hate fest but the first national conference of Historians Against the War (HAW), events more closely related than they may at first appear.

HAW, notwithstanding its claims to scholarly prestige, is an activist organization. Formed in 2003 for the explicit purpose of opposing the U.S.-military offensive against Saddam Hussein, the HAW professed to be “deeply concerned about the needless destruction of human life” as well as “the egregious curtailment of civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad, and the obstruction of world peace for the indefinite future.” A fount of indignation on the subject of U.S. militarism, HAW could not be troubled to pass judgment on dictatorial Iraq.

Instead, the organization has devoted its energies to assailing the alleged “lies” of the Bush administration while rehabilitating the reputation of antebellum Iraq and shrilly declaring a rhetorical war against the “War on Terrorism,” whose prosecution by the United States unsettles HAW’s 1800-plus members far more than its targets. Long a fixture at anti-war rallies, HAW is a participating member of United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), a leading coalition of anti-war groups. At UFPJ’s Second National Assembly, convened last February in St. Louis, Missouri, HAW was a prominent attendee.

That same activist ethos pervaded HAW’s recent conference. Held between February 17 and 19 at the University of Texas at Austin, it was titled “Empire, Resistance, and the War in Iraq.” Even more revealing was the subtitle: “A Conference for Historians and Activists.” For despite the fig leaf of its billing as a “scholarly” event, aimed at examining the Iraq war from a “historical perspective,” the conference was little more than a prolonged grievance session for activists to parade their radicalism and issue yet another call for the politicization of American higher education.

Far from atypical were the remarks of keynote speaker Howard Zinn. The America-loathing Marxist and retired Boston University professor used the occasion to deliver himself of a broadside against the U.S. government. Not only was President Bush a liar, according to Zinn, but, in the words of HAW-member Judy Atkins, he also claimed that “[t]he biggest lie that many people fall for is that there is a common national interest between the common people and the government.” Zinn additionally set forth the more ambitious agenda of the HAW conference. Besides liberating the country from the oppressive Bush administration, he counseled, likeminded academics had an occupational duty to “take our history.” Lest there be any doubt about the direction history should be taken, Zinn stressed that but a single approach would suffice: a distinctly Marxist focus on the “clash of classes.”

Where Zinn urged a new dedication to the cause of politicized education, the conference’s other keynote speaker, Andrea Smith, a radical feminist and a assistant professor in Women’s Studies and American Culture at the University of Michigan, took aim at those who dared to dissent from academic orthodoxy with respect to the wisdom of military intervention. Smith singled out for opprobrium feminists who supported the U.S.-led overthrow of Afghanistan’s Taliban regime. One report quoted Smith sneering that a bombing campaign could never liberate women. Enlarging on that theme, Smith asserted that the real threat to women came not from the governments like the Taliban but from concepts like the nation state.

Extremists in the mold of Smith were in abundant supply at the conference. But even in a crowd undistinguished by political temperance, Kenneth Long, a tenured professor and a Chair of History and Political Science at Connecticut’s Saint Joseph College, upped the radical ante. In a discussion panel titled "What Can Historians and Activists Learn From Each Other?" Long, a self-described socialist, acquainted the audience with his course “History of Modern Wars,” which he devised especially for his college.

To say that the course had a political focus is to grossly understate matters. As Long explained it, the course had “the conscious goal of helping students see the ugly realities of American military aggressions over the past sixty some years and with an unspoken hope that this course might somehow contribute something toward a social and political milieu conducive to the emergence of a viable resistance campaign to help end the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Students had every right to disagree with him, Long insisted. Nonetheless, he explained in no uncertain terms that his chief aim was to instill a hostility to American military intervention: “Specifically, my goal was to design and teach a course that would help students learn that there have been no good American wars, that the country has never come at all close to living up to the values it professes, and, thus, that there is really little new about the current American aggressions in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Toward that end, Long introduced a curriculum long on anti-American conspiracy theories and short on anything that might be described as fact-based history. For instance, Long informed his students that American-led wars were “immoral and worthy of resistance;” that Franklin Roosevelt’s administration had “worked very hard to provoke a Japanese attack;” that the U.S. was a would-be ally of the Nazis during World War II and American “society at the time was very eugenicist and virulently racist.” Following a “radical critique” of American wars from World War II to the War on Terror, Long ended by contending that the “United States has not demonstrated, or even made a systematic attempt to demonstrate with evidence, reason to conclude [sic] that Al Qaeda was in fact responsible for, or participatory in, the September 11 attacks.” At the end of the class, students were asked to take a survey on their political attitudes. “On all thirty questions, my students reported more anti-war attitudes on the post-test than they had on the pre-test,” Long enthused. “The course clearly seems to have had some affect in the desired direction.”

Long conceded that some might be “uncomfortable” with his teaching methods. Happily, however, he pointed out that his college’s “administration, faculty, staff, and students are all preponderantly liberal, and very liberal at that” and so he had “no worries” about teaching the class. Not that he had much interest in dissenting views. “I almost certainly would have taught the course anyway,” Long boasted at the conference.

Long’s aggressively political approach was widely embraced. Margaret Power, a co-chair of HAW and an associate professor of History at the Illinois Institute of Technology, dismissed as “absurd” the notion that historians can “stay removed from the political currents that swirl around us…” Political activism, Power explained, was a job requirement. “As people who have the time and opportunity to study and learn, we also have the responsibility and the ability to speak out.” Warming to that theme, Power claimed that heretofore “we have been far too silent." It was a sentiment sharply at odds with the longstanding political posturing of the academic Left.

Perhaps the most curious statement at the conference came from Shanti Marie Singham, a professor of History at Williams College in Massachusetts. After announcing her preference for teaching the Iranian Revolution as an illustration of “Islam as an anti-imperialist ideology of resistance in the contemporary period,” as well as her devoted attention to the “anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism as practiced by Westerners,” Singham trained her sights on critics of politicized education, most notably Frontpage Magazine Editor-in-Chief David Horowitz.

In particular, Singham took issue with the criticism, made by Horowitz and other observers, that not a few professors have abandoned any pretense to objectivity and balance in the classroom. For her part, Singham claimed that “history does not strive for balance.” Rather, she said, it was concerned with the “truth.” Singham helpfully elaborated on the kind of truth she had in mind. Examples included “pointing to the downfalls of previous imperialist missions in the Middle East,” and “a truthful rendition of the costs, for example, of the establishment of the state of Israel at the expense of the dispossessed Palestinians.”

continued...

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21501

Jolie Rouge

03-03-2006, 10:47 PM

Having at length castigated the critics of the universities, Singham concluded with a striking admission. In portraying the American system of higher education as a haven for academic radicals, more concerned with political advocacy than scholarly instruction, these critics, Singham said, were essentially correct:

In this, the charges of the right are right – leftists and liberals do have great influence in most of the colleges and universities in this country, thanks to the opening up of higher education in the aftermath of the revolt of the 1960’s. It is time for us to think creatively about using this power – and not just in the classroom, but with teach-ins, national days of protest, the passing of anti-war and impeachment resolutions in our schools in conjunction with the movement of towns to do likewise, holding solidarity filibusters with the courageous Princeton students who enacted one last Spring, descending on Congress in anti-war t-shirts, publishing manifestos in newspapers and on-line, showing anti-war movies, like Fahrenheit 911, Uncovered, Soldiers Pay, Why We Fight and accompanying them with discussion, and encouraging our colleagues and students to work for congressional and senatorial candidates determined to end the war in the upcoming primaries this spring and summer and the elections in November– in short, to do everything we can so that the world, at least, will know how strongly we protest the inhumanities committed daily in our names.

Unwitting though it was, it was an indictment of the modern university worthy of David Horowitz.

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21501

Jolie Rouge

03-03-2006, 10:49 PM

Academic Hanky Panky
By David Horowitz -- FrontPageMagazine.com
March 3, 2006

Like several local media outlets, the Seattle Times recently ran a story about the treatment of one of its hometown academics who was profiled in my book, The Professors. Like most local papers the Times also tilted its report heavily in favor the professor I had criticized. To make its defense of the indefensible plausible, the Times suppressed the heart of the case I had made both in the book and in my interview with its reporter. The academic under scrutiny is David Barash, Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington and co-author of a standard textbook used in “Peace Studies” courses. In the Times’ account Professor Barash laughed at the idea that he should be included in my book and so, in effect, did the Times itself. Without any information other than that provided by the Times, I probably would be laughing, too.

But with this information the story looks very different indeed. The first point I made both in the book and in my interview – not mentioned by the Times -- was that as a trained animal psychologist Barash was academically unqualified to write an academic text on the complex issues of geopolitics and in particular the social, cultural, and economic causes of war and peace. In other words, Barash’s co-authored text was not a scholarly work and should not be presented as such to students. It was, therefore, a perfect example of the widespread intellectual corruption in the university that The Professors was written to expose.

Academics like Barash make $100,000 plus per year for 6-9 hours work per week in the classroom; they have four month paid vacations and lifetime jobs. The minimal workload for professors is justified by the need to do research. But an animal psychologist is not qualified to do research in the field of war and peace. The granting of tenure, on the other hand, is premised on the fact that professors are credentialed as experts in a field and the very fact of their expertise means that laymen are not qualified to judge their work. That is why they require the protection of academic tenure. But if professors are going to pontificate as amateurs in areas where everyone is his own expert, why should they have any more protection than radio talk show hosts or politicians? In other words, Barash’s textbook and the academic courses based on it are a species of academic consumer fraud, and we should have the same attitude towards them as we do towards Enron officials or members of other institutions who violate procedures and laws. That was my point – entirely unreported by the Seattle Times.

I also argued that Barash’s book is an advocacy tract and therefore even if its author were academically qualified to write it, which he is not, it is not a proper book to be assigned as the basic textbook in an academic course. In other words, this is a form of indoctrination, not education. A piece of this latter point did manage to find its way into the Times account.

In the Times article, the reporter also gave Barash a platform for doing some professorial slandering of me. “Barash, a biologist by training, has taught at the UW for 33 years. As well as Peace Studies, he teaches animal behavior and evolutionary psychology. He said he felt honored to be mentioned alongside notable academics like Noam Chomsky, Paul Ehrlich, Michael Eric Dyson and Howard Zinn….Barash said his profile in the book is full of misrepresentations and inaccuracies. For instance, it claims he blames the Cuban missile crisis on the psychology of President Kennedy — when in fact his book mentions many factors, including the Soviet Union’s missile buildup. It’s just a lie. He either didn’t read the book or look it up,’ Barash said. ‘The whole thing is just a cartoon.’”

Even without the actual facts in front of one, it is obvious that this comment comes from the “Bush lied, people died,” school of political correctness. Apparently for radicals like Barish it is not possible for a conservative to miss a sentence or paragraph in a 570-page book, which is not organized in any chronological or narrative fashion. Instead, the conservative must be lying (because that’s what conservatives do, since no rational or morally decent human being could hold conservative views).

In fact, Barash and his co-author do attribute the Cuban Missile Crisis to Kennedy bravado, as the passage from his text that I actually quoted in The Professors shows. However, the Soviet missile buildup in Cuba is also mentioned in Barash’s book in a paragraph about the crisis, which is separated by a hundred pages from the one I quoted – which is why I missed it. On the one hand, then, Barash is right that I did miss that second passage. On the other, this passage only reinforces the comments I made about Barash’s text. In discussing the emplacement missiles (in a sentence or two), Barash and his co-author minimize its significance as a factor in the crisis in order to 1) present the confrontation from the perspective of the Soviet dictatorship and 2) adopt a stance of moral equivalence that will discredit the policies and position of the United States.

In this second account of the Cuban Missile Crisis in Barash’s text, it is derisively labeled “A Game of ‘Chicken’.” Barash and his co-author explain the meaning of this term by referring students to the James Dean film Rebel Without A Cause in which two teenagers drive cars off a cliff to meet a dare. In this theater of the absurd, the American president appears as an insecure adolescent who having been humiliated by the Soviets the previous year, compensates by “playing chicken” with the Soviet dictatorship over the emplacement of missiles.

The emplacement of the missiles by the dictator Nikita Khrushchev was an act that serious historians have regarded as a reckless provocation. In fact, the Soviets themselves described it as such when they removed Khrushchev some years later. But Barash and his co-author regard the emplacement of missiles as perfectly reasonable. They explain: “The most dramatic example of nuclear chicken occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the Soviet Union attempted to install medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, hoping to deter the United States from invading Cuba, and to ‘balance’ the American deployment of nuclear tipped missiles in Turkey (bordering the former Soviet Union) and Great Britain.” This, explanation, of course, is word for word the Soviet propaganda line of the time.

Contrary to Barash and the Kremlin propagandists, the emplacement of U.S. missiles in Turkey and Great Britain was not provocative but defensive. They were put in those locations because the Soviet Union was an aggressive dictatorship that had killed between 20 and 40 million of its own people and because the Red Army was occupying Eastern Europe and was poised to overrun Western Europe. The Red Army had previously conducted an incursion into Iran. (None of this is mentioned in the Barash text). The missiles America put in Europe and Turkey were designed to deter a Soviet invasion because the Red Army had a million plus troop advantage over the West along the Iron Curtain. To compensate for the manpower deficit the United States deployed nuclear missiles. (All this is absent too from the Barash text.) By contrast, the emplacement of missiles in Cuba actually did upset the balance of power and was an aggressive design to do so. That’s why the Soviet Union put the missiles in Cuba secretly and why the Soviet ambassador lied to Kennedy and denied the missiles were being put in place.

So how misleading is my account in The Professors of Barash’s treatment of the Cuban Missile Crisis? Here is what The Professors says about his text: “Throughout Peace and Conflict Studies, the authors justify Communist policies and actions and put those of America and Western democracies in a negative light. This one-sided tilting to America’s totalitarian enemies is evident in its treatment of the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example.”

Barash’s book has no listing for the Red Army, falsely claims that there was no civil war in Russia associated with the revolution (there was and it killed millions), mentions “Stalinism” only as a pretext used by the United States to justify its own military build up (and without letting students know what Stalinism was) provides no critical apparatus that would introduce students to a view that did not consist of pathetic apologetics for communism, begins its chapter on “Poverty as a Cause of War” by recapping the Marxist view of the world and following it with nothing that would contradict it. It is a book so atrocious in its distortion of history in favor of the “progressive” worldview that it compares the coldly calculated Tianamen Square massacre of peacefully demonstrating civilians by the soldiers and tanks of the Chinese police state to the killing of four students by Ohio national guardsmen who panicked under assault by rock-throwing radicals at Kent State.

If there is a liar in this room, it is most assuredly not me.

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21505

mesue

03-03-2006, 11:29 PM

I do agree with most of what he said but he said it in a totally inappropriate place. Just like religion, a political view should not be taught in the schools.

janelle

03-04-2006, 12:40 AM

mesue

03-04-2006, 01:30 AM

But this is done all the time with politics. Then when the students go into college they get the so called professor who goes into his diatribe of there is no God. On and on.

I've heard it from my SS. They fall into the same thinking. He is coming out of it now that he has been out of college for a few years. It takes a strong person to stand up to it.
When I say schools, I don't mean college. College is totally different and is usually attended by people of adult age. For instance I took a course on the study of religion in college. I also took a course on death & dying which also had a lot about different relgions. Of course no one stood up and prayed, I would have left had anyone done so, I would have left not because I had anything against their religion but because it's a place I was going to and paying for learning not attending a prayer service.

So your step son had different ideas after college and you think that he was indoctrinated into some sort of brainwashing program because his ideas are different than yours.

You know its is a real myth that college Professors are out there pushing their political views on students, sure there might be plenty who are very politcal outside the clssroom and thats their right, but I'm betting inside the classroom they teach the course and leave politics out of it. I have over 130 college credits and could not tell you whether any of my instructors were conservative or liberal. And you can bet I would have been discussing politics with them if they had wanted to disscuss it. The most political anyone ever got was to say, "Go vote, I don't care or want to know who you are voting for, that's your business, but it's important you vote." The instructor who told us that refused to say how she would vote.

mebuffyg

03-04-2006, 09:57 AM

In my opinion this is a geography class, not a political science class. The things that this "teacher" was lecturing on has nothing to do with his particular subject. If religion cannot be discussed in schools why should politics? Sure at times politics is relevant, like in history or any other social science, but then it used as examples and compare/contrast, not as a means for the teacher to push their ideas onto our children. And if they do they should at least have CORRECT information and not twist the facts around to suit their own political ideals.
As far as college professors go, I am in school full time right now. I'm not saying that some don't push their political views but as a majority they don't. They give the facts and it is up to the student to draw their own conclusions.
If the SS came home with a different view than when he left, there are alot of student based clubs and discussion group, student based, not teacher based. Kids tend to listen to those who are closest to their own age about these things, because we as parents don't understand them. (So they say). He is also an individual and was eventually going to draw his opinion and wether it differed from what he was brought up with is up to him. Think about it, not all of your views are the same as parents. Its pretty much that way with each generation.

tngirl

03-04-2006, 10:04 AM

a political view should not be taught in the schools.

I totally agree with you on this one. See, miracles do happen...lol.

mesue

03-04-2006, 05:29 PM

I totally agree with you on this one. See, miracles do happen...lol.
It's amazing. We finally agree on something. LOL

Jolie Rouge

03-06-2006, 01:19 PM

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT
By Michelle Malkin · March 06, 2006 01:11 PM

Last week, I noted a challenge by two students here in Montgomery County, Md., to the unbalanced "Peace Studies" currciulum in the public high school system taught by anti-war ideologue Colman McCarthy. http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004660.htm The students, both seniors at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, e-mailed me follow-up essays on their experience and their response to some of the MSM coverage of their views. Thanks to Andrew Saraf and Avishek Panth.

Don't back down, boys.

From Andrew:

The reaction to Sunday's Washington Post article, in particular the critical reaction to the views I expressed therein, seem to consist of two main charges. The first is that we are conservatives, or Republican "chickenhawks" as one blogger put it, bent on the removal of liberalism from the classroom. In other words, we are witch-hunters. This is absolutely erroneous. Avi and I are also not on any "witch hunt" against those with certain political ideologies. My mother is a teacher; I therefore have a pretty clear understanding of the fact that teachers are human beings with political views.
A certain degree of bias is to be expected in any classroom lecture. The difference is that Peace Studies is a class whose very mission is biased. Mr. McCarthy has in the last few days said such things as this: "People say, 'You don't give the other side.' And I say, 'You're exactly right'. " In classes sometimes disparagingly called 'traditional' or 'mainstream', bias is fought, and hopefully kept at a minimum. In Peace Studies, there is a resolute refusal to do so. And why? Or, at least, what is the stated reason for this? "This is the other side," Mr. McCarthy claims, to what we get elsewhere. Every other source of information has a conservative bias. In the meanwhile, as the class learned in a recent reading, we are "on a moving train", and "you can't be neutral".

So the class, and its current practices, are based on two rather questionable assumptions: The first is that outside the class, the bias is a conservative one. The second is that neutrality is neither possible nor desirable because history is moving in one clear direction. The moment the existence of other points of view is acknowledged, these assumptions simply fall apart. We find that the liberals complain of a conservative bias, a "right-wing media", while the conservatives believe that the media and the public school system are controlled by left-wing radicals. Who is right? Is this issue settled? And as for the "moving train", in truth, we are not yet clear on what direction the train is moving in. What is the course of history? Who has defined it? Who has been responsible for the progress that has been made? Once again, these issues are not settled. But the class is taught as if they are. And that is the problem.

The second charge made against us is that, because we have not taken the class, we are in no position to speak on it or protest it. This is absolutely absurd. By that rationale, what has become a high visibility issue is in fact reserved to the select few who have had the privilege of being seniors at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School and the infinite wisdom and good judgment required to choose to take the class. This means that parents, bloggers, commentators and all those younger than 17 or 18 have no place in this debate. What I suggest is that we be more rational. Just as a parent with a son or daughter in the class has every right to discuss it, I feel that as a student who has done extensive research into Mr. McCarthy's educational philosophy, and who has spoken at length with a number of Peace Studies students, none of them with an "Anti-Peace Studies" agenda, I too have a right to engage in discussion about this issue. And my allegations, which were much more tentative at first, have only been further confirmed in the last few weeks.

We asked a student and self-described supporter of McCarthy's whether he himself ever presented facts or positions that contradicted his own ideology. The answer was "no". Not once have I heard of statistics provided in the class that would support a conservative interpretation of the issues; but again and again I have heard impassioned talk by his students on the differences in the amount of money spent "on war" and "on the poor", and on the inequalities in the distribution of wealth in the world, and so on and so forth. The only opposing speaker that has been brought in (of the many speakers), as far as I have heard, has been a parent of one of the students. His cause? He supported animal testing. On every other issue, not one student of Mr. McCarthy's has been able to produce an example of someone brought in with an alternative view. I have asked them to do so a number of times.

And, of course, there is the inevitable invocation of the class' status as an elective. This is a very appealing argument to make, because Avishek and I can thus be cast as curmudgeons who just want to keep everyone else from having fun. The problem is that it ignores two fundamental facts: First of all, Montgomery County Public Schools has a duty to apply the same basic standards of educational quality to every class that is offered, whether the class is an elective or not. Among these standards is a recognition that the major issues of our time are not settled; political ideologies are not the equivalent of algebra or physics.

Mr. McCarthy has said that not everyone believes in algebra, and that not everyone believes in physics, but that they are taught anyway, but to attempt to make a comparison between science and math and political beliefs is simply ridiculous. If a only one political ideology is being taught, the class should not be offered. The second fundamental fact is the nonexistence of an alternative. Peace Studies is a class tailored to liberal tastes. The 2nd period Peace Studies class, which we have visited, has only one or two Republicans in it. So the choice is between a political class that represents left-wing views or no political class at all. This could hardly be called a choice.

I would finally like to clarify my goals with this effort. Despite the Washington Post's unfortunate misstatements, Avi and I are not calling for the "banning" of the Peace Studies class. We recognize that certain aspects of the class are of value. But we believe that alternative lecturers must be brought in, individuals who would teach with Mr. McCarthy on alternating days. That way, both sides will be presented, while the unconventional nature of the experience is preserved. In spite of what some of our critics have said, this does not mean that students will also be "taught war" or "taught violence". It simply means that more than one narrow view of peace will be presented. Most political ideologies, and surely almost all Americans, 'believe in peace'. The question is how peace is to be achieved and approached. There is more than one way, and students should be taught as such.

Thank you very much.

Andrew Saraf

Jolie Rouge

03-06-2006, 01:21 PM

Jolie Rouge

03-07-2006, 08:38 AM

QUOTE=Jolie Rouge,Mar 2 2006, 02:17 PM] This story is big here in Denver : A 16-year-old World Geography student, Sean Allen, taped his Bush-bashing, capitalism-hating high school teacher's screeching diatribe. [/QUOTE]

Teacher at center of controversy to break silence
Dan Viens
Created: 3/6/2006

AURORA - A teacher placed on leave after an audio taped portion of one of his classes came to light is expected to talk to the media for the first time Tuesday.

Overland High School geography teacher Jay Bennish is scheduled to appear on the Today Show Tuesday. 9NEWS at Noon. Mar. 6, 2006.

Overland High School geography teacher Jay Bennish is scheduled to appear on NBC's Today show. 9NEWS has tried several times to contact Bennish.

Bennish has been at the center of a media storm since last week when a tape of his class made by one of his students first appeared on 850 KOA. In the 20-minute recording Bennish says President Bush and Adolf Hitler have similar tones when talking about certain subjects.

Overland sophomore Sean Allen made the recording. He is accusing Bennish of lecturing in his classes with a political bias.

Colorado Governor Bill Owens talked about Bennish for the first time Monday on KOA's Mike Rosen Show.

Owens thinks what Bennish did was wrong. The governor also praised Allen for bringing up the issue. Owens said Bennish should not be upset with the recording because anything a teacher says at a public school is a public matter.

Owens, whose three children all attended school in the Cherry Creek School District, says he thinks the district is handling the matter properly.

Allen's mother also talked to KOA Monday. Patti Allen says her son felt he never had a chance to bring up political viewpoints that were different from Bennish's and other students in his class also felt uncomfortable speaking up.

The Today Show will air Tuesday beginning at 7 a.m. on 9NEWS following 9NEWS 6 a.m.

http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME...47-c589c01ca7bf (http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=d11aa2eb-0abe-421a-0064-2ee9886ffa8e&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf)

Lauer for the Defense:
Matt Asks Colorado Teacher "Were You Set Up?"
Posted by Mark Finkelstein on March 7, 2006 - 07:53.

Turns out the real culprit in the Colorado kerfluffle over the teacher who compared Pres. Bush to Hitler is . . . the student who complained about it. Just ask Matt Lauer.

Interviewing teacher Jay Bennish this morning, Lauer laid out this sympathetic scenario:

Lauer: "The family here, the student's family, didn't go to the school board with this tape."

Bennish: "They never contacted me."

Lauer: "They shopped it around to conservative media outlets and finally released it to one and created an uproar. On the tape you can hear Sean Allen [the student in question] asking you questions that seem to be egging you on a little bit. Do you feel you were set up?"

Wait a second, Matt. Isn't the essence of the teacher's defense that he was trying to provoke discussion of these issues? Didn't you just hear him say that "my job as a teacher is to challenge students to think critically," that he was trying to "encourage critical thought" and that students would "get extra credit regardless of their viewpoints"?

But when a student does just that, he is "setting the teacher up"?

Think Lauer would have floated the same theory if, say, a Muslim student had recorded a teacher propagating the notion that Islam is an inherently violent religion?

And speaking of "shopping" a story, Matt, didn't Bennish shop his exclusive to a "liberal media outlet" - the Today show?

http://newsbusters.org/node/4327

Jolie Rouge

03-07-2006, 08:53 AM

March 07, 2006

Ace of Spades Exclusive: Jay Bennish's Geography Pop Quiz

You will have 10 minutes to complete this test. Please mark all answers clearly. You will be judged on your knowledge of world geography, of both the actual and "holistic" types.

1. What river did conquistador Hernando DeSoto discover?

a) The Mississippi River

b) The Missouri River

c) The Rio Grande

d) What river did he discover? Discover? As if there weren't a diverse and ecologocially-sensitive people living there for 5000 peaceful years of enlightened communal property sharing before. Yeah, kind of like Hitler "discovered" the Sudetenland, right? You know what I'm talkin' about.

2. Which of the following natural resources does the US have the least of?

a) Uranium

b) Gold

c) Forestland/Timber

d) Freedom. It's as precious as gold and as bright as diamonds, and that's the name of that tune. Instead of drilling in the Arctic for oil, Bush should be drilling in his own black heart for freedom, baby.

3. What separates England from continental Europe?

a) The Irish Sea

b) The English Channel

c) A history of promoting human slavery, both actual and constructive, in the form of the vicious capitalism imposed on the world by the cannons of British warships, and a jingoistic militaristic fascism in the form of a disgusting monarchy and repressive class system. You should write this sh!t in your notebook, kid. This is all pure gold I'm giving you here.

d) Both b and c, but mostly c. They got the Chunnel and **** now to bridge the first one.

4. I just sparked up before class and I've got a serious case of the munchies. Anyone have any Doritos, Ho-Ho's, or even Chuckles-brand licorice treats?

a) I've got Doritos (bring them up and grade your own test)

b) I've got Ho-Ho's (bring them up and choose your own grade for this semester)

c) I've got Chuckles (stay in your seat; I'm waitin' to see if someone has anything better; plus, those black ones taste like filth)

d) I've got a fresh cheesesteak sandwhich drippin' hot grease in my desk (meet me out in the parking lot and we'll share some cheestake and spleef; plus, you can have my sweet ride, a 1984 Chevette with a picture of Marvin the Martian in the hatchback window)

5. The film The Wall seems pretty incomprehensible, but it makes perfect sense if you watch it high.

a) Not really a question here.

b) I'm just sayin', I got really baked last night and the whole thing just really gelled for me.

c) Ralph McQaurrie's animations are really freaky and scary when you're high, though. Jesus! I swear, that one judge looks like a butt-hole or somethin'. I'm tellin' you, I think he's a giant dumper in a barrister's wig.

d) I guess no one has a cheesesteak, huh? Okay, how about those Chuckles?

Put down your pencils. Let's skip the test and go outside and lay in the sun and just "rap" about current events. Or other interesting topics, like if the universe really exists, or if it's just some magical vision dreamed by a cosmic unicorn.

I know I smell a cheesesteak. Who's holding out on me?

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/162020.php

Jolie Rouge

03-07-2006, 09:16 AM

Overland investigation almost done
School district officials say they will soon have a decision on any disciplinary against teacher Jay Bennish.
Chris Vanderveen 9NEWS Reporter
Created: 3/6/2006 8:32 PM MST

AURORA - The Cherry Creek School District may decide as early as Tuesday on whether it will punish Jay Bennish for talking politics during his world geography class.

District spokeswoman Tustin Amole says there will be a press conference when the investigation is complete. That should happen either Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday, according to Amole.

Bennish is on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of that investigation. He is scheduled to appear on NBC's Today Show on Tuesday morning. It will be his first public appearance since the controversy gained national attention.

In January a sophomore at Overland High School recorded 22 minutes of Bennish's advanced world geography class. Bennish can be heard criticizing both American foreign and domestic policy.

Critics say he clearly violated the school district's policy that requires teachers to present balanced viewpoints in class. Bennish's attorney says his client was simply trying to get the students to think critically about controversial subjects.

http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME...47-c589c01ca7bf (http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=d2c35a70-0abe-421a-01ef-1f1371268b24&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf)

He was supposed to be teaching sophmore High School geography - not PoliSi in college. The question is not Free Speech - but was he doing his job. If he was conducting class in this manner 80% of the time as students claim ( which is why the student recorded this as an example ) then he wasn't teaching geography

The Jay Bennish 'Diatribe as Geography'
by Nicholas Provenzo (March 6, 2006)

Colorado high school geography teacher Jay Bennish plans to bring suit in federal court in order to be re-instated in the classroom after he was suspended for comments he made during a class lecture. Bennish is being represented by attorney David Lane, who also represented Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado professor who received national notoriety when he compared Americans killed on 9/11 to Nazis.

In an interview on Denver's CBS 4, Lane inadvertently revealed the weakness in his client's case. According to Lane, Bennish's remarks are protected speech-as long as they fit within the curriculum of his class. How a twenty-minute stream-of-consciousness leftist diatribe falls within the rubric of a high school geography class escapes me, so it will be interesting to see how the court rules.

Of course, the key rests in defining the nature of the speech at hand. I was most taken aback by Bennish's absurd and off-topic smears against America and the free market, but the media seems to be highlighting the more concrete remarks against George Bush. I suspect Bennish's attorney will claim that is was those remarks alone that earned Bennish his suspension. As "political speech," Bennish's attorney will argue his remarks are protected.

Yet this is not the real question at bar. The real question is simply does an employer have a right to sanction an employee for inappropriate comments that stray from the task at hand. The proper view is to take Bennish in his entire context and determine if his employers have any cause to dissatisfied with any aspect of his performance as teacher. I think its clear that Bennish's employers have ever right to be upset with his conduct and sanction him accordingly. Bennish is free to let loose his diatribes on his own time, but he has no right to demand a captive audience of high-school students.

It will be bad news for education if Bennish wins re-instatement. In essence, the court will have ruled that a high-school teacher has no professional responsibility to follow the school curriculum and that school administrators cannot admonish teachers who bring inappropriate and off-topic opinions into their classrooms.

The tragedy is the whatever the court's decision, the real question behind this debate-which is the legitimacy of the public schools themselves--will yet again be evaded.

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4595

Jolie Rouge

03-08-2006, 01:43 PM

SHAMELESS IN SEATTLE
By Michelle Malkin · March 24, 2005 01:35 PM

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/001843.htm

For those of you who have been following the Seattle anti-war school spectacle we've been blogging about for the past week, there are new developments. I just got off the phone with Maj. Terry Thomas, who was in attendance at the moonbat assembly at West Seattle High School. He'll be meeting with the Seattle School Board president today to discuss the controversy.

As you'll recall, three veterans including Maj. Thomas were invited to speak at what was supposed to be a fair and balanced presentation on the war in Iraq. Instead, they were confronted on the high school theater stage with figures costumed as Iraqi men, women and children splashed with blood. Here's a reminder of how Maj. Thomas described the scene:

As I stood there in my Marine Corps Dress Blue uniform, there before me stood numerous kids running around in sloppily dressed and ill-fitted helmets and military fatigues with utter disrespect for the symbols and uniforms of the U.S. military. The walls were covered in camouflaged netting and the stage was covered with approximately twenty white, life-sized cut-out patterns in the shape of dead women and children, all of which were splattered in red-paint to depict human blood. Onstage, children were kneeling and weeping while dressed in ill-fitted Arabic headdress with white-faced masks similarly covered in red paint to depict human blood. At a podium, children were reading a monologue of how U.S. troops were killing civilians and shooting at women and children. Moreover, several grown adults were standing on stage in bright orange jump-suits, with black bags on and off their heads, some bound and tied, and some banging symbols and gongs in a crude depiction of what I believe were their efforts to depict victims of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse episode.

Within the auditorium, numerous adults appeared to have been supervising this behavior and children were literally running amok. What is going on in your classrooms and auditoriums? Who supervised this program? Who are these grown adults dressed as prisoners and performing such the attics on the stage of our public schools? Since when has it become Seattle School Board policy to take an official anti-troops position and declare returning combat veterans from Iraq such as myself as killers of innocent women and children as if this war were some sick sport. As an Iraq war veteran I am outraged by what I witnessed going on at West Seattle High School!

"It was the classic, Vietnam War-era baby-killer stuff," Maj. Thomas told me this morning. Outside anti-war groups had "free reign" on campus, Maj. Thomas recounted. And contrary to the initial defense of school officials, it WAS NOT just unsupervised kids who came up with and executed the idea for the assembly.

As principal Susan Dersé acknowledged in a letter sent home to parents, the assembly "was organized by students with the guidance of faculty advisors and administrators."

Which advisors? Which administrators? Maj. Thomas and others are demanding accountability from school officials, but so far we have no names. An apology from the unhinged adults who allowed this shameless exercise to occur is in order as well.

The principal, Susan Dersé, has long had an axe to grind with the U.S. military. According to a 1997 Seattle Times article, when she was principal of another Seattle-area high school, Shorecrest High School, she went out of her way to pander to a local peace activist who complained about the presence of military recruiters on campus:

SHORELINE - For years, you could find them regularly in the halls of Shorecrest High School, medals shining, black shoes agleam, trouser creases sharper than a regulation haircut.

They dropped into the weight room or career center, set up tables and chatted up students at lunch, recruiting for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.

That bothered Glen Milner.

"It's so common to see a recruiter on campus, it's like the school is condoning military activity," says Milner, whose son just graduated from Shorecrest and whose daughter will be a junior there in September.

"But in the case of military recruitment, there's no truth squad. There should be an alternate voice," he said.

It took Milner, a 46-year-old electrician and longtime peace activist, two years to persuade school officials to allow one.

Because of him, the school's career center this spring started displaying brochures from an anti-war organization that questions recruiting claims about job training and money, the military's two biggest selling points.

More dramatically, Shorecrest Principal Susan Derse said she planned to reduce the number of recruiter visits starting next fall - from four times a month, as has been the practice for years, to only six times annually. Recruiters would be allowed to meet students only in the presence of career specialists.

Is it any wonder these kids grow up, graduate, and then pull these kind of stunts against the troops? http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/210741_protest04.html
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/000171.htm
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/001801.htm

Maj. Thomas told me this incident "shows to what depths the radical anti-war movement will go to invade our public schools and lash out at returning Iraq war veterans like myself." It's a travesty.

Ed Morrissey weighs in here. http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/004094.php

An excerpt:
The school could provide no explanation for the skits prepared and enacted by the students, and could not determine if any adult supervision had been involved. However, as anyone who survived public school knows, students don't just disappear into the theater for any period of time without having some cooperation from teachers. This wasn't an improvisation; they had costumes, effects, and at least a rudimentary set built for this play. Combined with the access given the students to the assembly, it's clear that teachers set this ambush up -- and that's exactly what this was intended to be[.]

Jolie Rouge

03-08-2006, 01:55 PM

[b]Colo. Teacher's Dad Cites Death Threats 4 minutes ago

DENVER - The father of a teacher who made a classroom comparison between President Bush's State of the Union address and speeches made by Adolf Hitler says he and his family have received at least 12 death threats.

ADVERTISEMENT

Teacher Jay Bennish is on paid leave from Overland High School in suburban Aurora while Cherry Creek School District investigates whether his Feb. 1 lecture violated a policy requiring that balancing viewpoints be presented in classes.

Bennish has defended the lecture, saying he was trying to encourage his students to think.

His father, John Bennish of Beverly Hills, Mich., told The Detroit News that people have called his house threatening to kill him or his family.

"This has been totally lopsided and one-sided," John Bennish said of the news coverage of his son's lecture, the News reported Wednesday.

John Bennish said he did not report the threats to police.

A student recorded at least part of the lecture in Jay Bennish's world geography class and took it to a Denver radio station, which played excerpts on a talk show.

Bennish told "Today" the excerpts broadcast weren't representative of the full lecture.

"This is 20 minutes out of a 50-minute class. The rest of the class provides the balance," he said.

On the recording, Bennish said some of Bush's speech "sounds a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler used to say. We're the only ones who are right, everyone else is backwards and our job is to conquer the world and make sure that they all live just like we want them to."

Later in the recording, Bennish said he was not claiming Bush and Hitler were the same, "but there are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use."

School district officials postponed a meeting with Bennish scheduled for Wednesday, citing calls "from people who have something they think may be pertinent to our investigation."

District spokeswoman Tustin Amole would not discuss the content of the calls but said they came after Bennish appeared on radio and TV. She did not know when the meeting would take place.

Amole would not say what disciplinary action Bennish might face if administrators conclude he broke any rules.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060308/ap_on_re_us/teacher_bush;_ylt=AtGIP4q2b_WMmXZc4Hks2Fis0NUE;_yl u=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM-

While I think the guy may be a twit and needs to stick to teaching the subject assigned ( or at least to research his diatribe better :rolleyes: ) - there is no call for harrassing him or his family. Death threats are by definition terrorism and if they can catch the callers, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. JMHO

Jolie Rouge

03-08-2006, 10:11 PM

Fire Bennish for His Moral and Historical Ignorance
March 2006
Terrence Moore

The righteous indignation against the classroom activism of Jay Bennish has thus far centered on the inappropriateness of such remarks, the obvious left-wing slant of Bennish and his desire to proselytize, and the clear violation of district policy. All these considerations make a slam-dunk case for getting rid of Bennish quickly, and the school district’s plodding attempts to decide what to do simply show how bureaucratic, union-driven, unfocused, and cowardly the regular public school system has become.

Yet there is a much more obvious reason for firing this so-called teacher, one that has escaped most of the media scrutiny thus far. He is incompetent. He makes moral statements without understanding basic morality. He makes historical statements that clearly reveal an ignorance of the simplest historical facts. This moral and historical ignorance should disqualify him from teaching children regardless of whether he ever makes a controversial statement again.

Let us consider the moral worth of Bennish’s statements. He compared President Bush to Hitler and claimed that the United States "is probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth." These are more than political statements; they are moral. As everyone knows "Hitler" or Nazism has become shorthand for evil in contemporary terms. In fact, as Allan Bloom argued two decades ago, "Hitler" is basically the only person whom post-modern relativists are willing to designate as evil. So Bush (and Americans who support him and fight his wars) is evil. Then what does that make Saddam Hussein? Bennish’s comparison of President Bush to Hitler thus undermines basic moral understanding in two ways. First, it diminishes and obscures the monstrosity that Hitlerism really was. Second, by suggesting that President Bush and Americans are simply imposing their values on Iraqis (who have recently voted for their government, even at great personal risk, for the first time in their lives), Bennish renders constitutional democracy and oppressive dictatorship as moral equivalents. Yet the most basic common sense suggests that they are not. How many people living in democracies were emigrating to Saddam’s Iraq? Was that reluctance to emigrate simply the result of Western values, or might the basic human rejection of torture chambers and tyranny have something to do with it? By equating President Bush with Hitler, Bennish cannot identify evil when it truly exists.

Bennish’s ignorance of history is also inexcusable. Hitler spoke fervently of the supremacy of the Aryan race. President Bush has never done so and has appointed numerous minorities to his cabinet and recently attended the funeral of Coretta Scott King. Hitler despised the Jews, blamed them for the political and financial woes of Germany, and sent them to concentration camps. President Bush recently appointed a Jewish man to head the Federal Reserve Board and openly declares the Israelis to be "our friends." Hitler enslaved the nations he conquered. The Bush doctrine is to promote democracy everywhere, including the Middle East where it hardly exists because of tyrannical regimes. Where are the "eerie similarities" between Hitler and Bush?

If the design of Bennish’s class were to deal with contemporary issues responsibly, President Bush could be criticized for his foreign policy or compared to leaders in the past, provided the teacher maintained the "balance" required by district policy. Yet even then the appropriate historical analogy would not be Hitler but Woodrow Wilson. President Bush’s second inaugural—"the best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world"—seems to be almost lifted out of Wilson’s declaration of war against Germany—"the world must be made safe for democracy." Would Bennish consider Wilson, a Democrat, akin to Hitler? Whether either Wilson’s or Bush’s grand hopes for democracy and world order were or are translatable into prudent foreign policy is a matter for serious historical and political discussion. Such discussion is not to be had with the likes of Bennish.

Bennish should be fired for his irresponsible activism, to be sure. Yet he should also be fired for his obvious lack of moral and historical understanding. Interestingly enough, the Cherry Creek school district could not have predicted what inflammatory remarks he might make in the classroom when he was hired. But shouldn’t someone have been checking whether he knows a thing or two about history?

http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/oped/moore/06/bennish.html

Jolie Rouge

03-09-2006, 10:09 PM

Bennish expects to be back in classroom Monday
By Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News
March 9, 2006

An attorney for Overland High School teacher Jay Bennish said this afternoon he expects Bennish to be back in the classroom on Monday.
Attorney David Lane said that is his best guess after he and Bennish spent 90 minutes speaking with Cherry Creek Schools administrators and attorneys.

Lane said he heard nothing that led him to believe Bennish would be disciplined.

He predicted serious consequences if he is.

"I'm guaranteeing you that if they fire him or suspend him or take a paycheck from him that will very likely result in a trial in federal court where the sole issue at the trial would be did they fire him for the content of his speech or did they fire him based on a policy violation," Lane said.

He also said that Bennish reiterated to Superintendent Monte Moses and other administrators he provides balance in his classes. And Lane said that Bennish would not apologize for what he said on the recording.

Cherry Creek officials would not comment after the meeting, saying only the issue is a personnel matter.

Bennish and Lane will meet again with district administrators at 2 p.m. Friday. Afterward, Moses is expected to talk to reporters.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4528769,00.html

Jolie Rouge

03-14-2006, 02:07 PM

Jay Bennish Reinstated without Visible Penalty
Posted by Tom Blumer on March 11, 2006 - 14:10. [/b]

School District to Taxpayers and Parents: Up Yours ..... and the Homeschooling Movement Gets a Yet Another Shot in the Arm: Here is yet another reason for parents to homeschool their children if at all possible (By the way, the story is hopelessly slanted -- The lecture was objectively biased; plus, the primary issue here is teaching the subject matter, and secondarily the political indoctrination Jay Bennish engaged in while not doing his job):

Bennish to teach again[i]

Punishment not revealed; teacher returns Monday
An Aurora social studies teacher accused of giving a biased lecture that sparked national debate over academic freedom was reinstated Friday after assuring administrators he would give balanced viewpoints in all classroom discussions.

Jay Bennish will return Monday to his teaching duties at Overland High School, less than two weeks after Cherry Creek School District administrators placed the 28-year-old on paid administrative leave.

Speaking after a meeting with administrators Friday, Bennish said that he was "excited to be back in the classroom" and that he would continue to use his job as a way to "encourage democratic values in our society" and to "promote social justice, just as I have always attempted to do."

"I continue trying to improve myself as a teacher," he said, adding he would still seek to make his students "think critically."

Disciplinary action was taken against the teacher, though Superintendent onte Moses declined to provide details. Bennish did not lose any of his salary, his attorney said.

In his lecture during a geography class last month - which student Sean Allen recorded and then made public - Bennish compared President Bush to Adolf Hitler, criticized U.S. foreign policy and said capitalism is "at odds with human rights."

The message to indoctrinating teachers is, "Indoctrinate to your heart's content. When you get caught, you'll get a slap on the wrist (you might even become famous), and then you'll have to 'be good' for a few years. After a while, you can resume your regular habits of indoctrination. Rinse and repeat as necessary until retirement."

The message to taxpayers and parents who expect their kids to be taught the classroom subject matter instead of having them subjected to political rants: "Up yours. You can't touch us."

http://newsbusters.org/node/4392

I recomend reading the posted comments - very interesting.

This is not the first time Bennish has been reprimanded for ranting in the classroom.

Jolie Rouge

03-14-2006, 02:15 PM

Jolie Rouge

03-14-2006, 02:21 PM

Meanwhile, a teacher loses her job for showing her class a video clip of the opera "Faust."

Teacher seeks new job after 'Faust' flap
Despite support, educator sees no future in Bennett
By Deborah Frazier, Rocky Mountain News
March 10, 2006

Tresa Waggoner, the Bennett School District music teacher put on paid leave for showing a video clip of the opera Faust, said Thursday that she's looking for a new job. Waggoner, placed on leave Jan. 30, said she called superintendent George Sauter on Thursday after a local newspaper reported that she would not be allowed to return to the classroom.

She said Sauter said she'd remain on paid leave. Sauter confirmed that, but declined further comment. "I'm applying for other teaching positions in schools and colleges," said Waggoner, a vocalist with two Christian CDs. "Maybe I'll become a church music director."

The video clip, narrated by opera star Joan Sutherland, featured sock puppets singing in French from the 16th-century morality tale.

Several parents complained that the video, which Waggoner got from the school library, contained references to abortion and Satan worship.

During the Feb. 16 board meeting, more than 53 people appeared to support her returning to the classroom and six opposed it, Waggoner said.

"Dr. Sauter told me it would be too disruptive to let me teach again," she said.

"I've done nothing wrong," she said. "I told him I would have to pray for him so he could live with himself for doing something so wrong."

The parents who asked that Waggoner be fired declined comment.

Waggoner isn't the only casualty in the culture wars in Bennett, an Adams County town of 2,500. Mayor Karen Grossiant resigned in late February and said Waggoner's removal was the "last straw.

"Tresa Waggoner was the last in a very long line of very peculiar situations," said Grossiant, an administrator at Regis University. "Bennett has a mean-spirited undertone. I'd had enough," she said.

When the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints built a meetinghouse in nearby Strasburg last year, there was a debate over whether Mormons were Christians, she said. "The issue with Tresa Waggoner wasn't the opera, but that she had run the holiday pageant without Christmas songs," said Grossiant.

Waggoner said she taught the elementary school students a variety of songs for the winter concert, but didn't include the traditional Christian songs.

Cory Babi, the wife of school board member Mike Babi, called four days before the program and said there would be problems if there were no Christmas songs, said Waggoner. "I told her we couldn't sing them because public schools didn't want to offend people of other religions, including Jewish people, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses," she said.

After Waggoner showed less than 12 minutes of the Faust videotape, Cory Babi said her daughter asked about abortion and suicide. Babi declined comment Thursday.

"The connection is transparent. They lied and said Faust is about abortion," said Waggoner. "The only thing I can do is expose this as the injustice that it is."

Faust: an old story

Faust, a legendary character in music and literature, dates back to a medieval morality tale of a deeply depressed man who sells his soul to the devil.

In all versions of the Faust story, the man obtains power and knowledge, but suffers dire and eternal consequences.

Early Christian teachers used the story to show the horrors that befall those who give in to the devil's temptations.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4529857,00.html

Jolie Rouge

04-11-2006, 07:58 AM

UNHINGED TEACHER OF THE WEEK
By Michelle Malkin · April 08, 2006 09:40 AM

The latest government education outrage from Alabama:

Demo candidate accused of showing Bush-bashing video to his students
Parent says West science teacher showed eighth graders video with obscenities
By Kelly Kazek

Christy Jackson does not want a teacher showing her 13-year-old son a video calling the president of the United States an a—hole during class. Nor does she believe her son should be shown Internet videos — which are barred to students by school system controls —that use obscenities.

But that is what West Limestone High School eighth grade science teacher Steve White, a Democratic candidate for the District 4 seat on the House of Representatives, is accused of doing. “My son and a group of his friends were talking about this video they had seen in school,” Jackson said. “One of the other student’s mother saw the video and she forwarded it to me. I saw it and I became livid.”

The video clip, which can be viewed at http://filmstripinternational.com/, shows a slideshow of images accompanied by a song called “A—hole.” The slides show President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and others in the administration. Words are typed on each image; a photo of bush in college bears the caption “A ‘bad apple’ in college.” A scene showing Rice said she was shopping for shoes after the “levee broke.”

The word a—hole is sung nine times and shown on screen 11 times; the s-word is used once and someone is shown “flipping a bird” once.

Jackson said she contacted West Limestone Principal Stan Davis, who told her White had been reprimanded.

School board member Darin Russell, whose district the school is in, said board members were made aware of the situation about a month ago.

The matter did not come before board members for discussion or a vote, but was handled by the central office by Superintendent Dr. Barry Carroll as a “personnel matter.”

Carroll, who is out of town, did not respond to a call to his cellular phone. A message was left at the central office for Assistant Superintendent Richard Leath, but an assistant said only Carroll could comment on the matter.

Two calls to Davis were not returned. A message left on White’s machine also received no response.

On Dec. 14, Carroll immediately suspended and then recommended that board members fire a school bus driver accused of using a vulgarity aboard the bus. The board did not terminate the driver.

In August of 2004, Carroll removed Internet access for teachers and students from county schools to prevent misuse and protect students. A few months later, access was returned to those faculty and staff who signed Internet use agreements and stated they would not access the Internet for personal use. Students only have access to Internet sites that are pre-approved by teachers.

Jackson spoke out about the Internet video, she said, because she did not feel White’s punishment was strong enough. She did not know specifics, but said the teacher received a “slap on the wrist.”

“I think he should admit he was wrong and he should apologize,” she said. “I’m really not out to get anybody fired, but I think a lesson needs to be learned and I don’t want any teacher showing my son anything that is not clean or related to his studies.”

Jackson said she is disturbed by both the political message and the obscenities in the video. “I don’t see what that has to do with science,” she said.

According to her son and his friends, she said, discussion in White’s science class often turns to politics. “I know of one instance where my son was told he couldn’t leave the room without saying, ‘John Kerry rocks,’” she said. “I think my son is entitled to his opinion, just like (his teacher) is. I don’t think any issue should be forced on my son.”

http://www.enewscourier.com/local/local_story_096210918.html?keyword=topstory

Jolie Rouge

04-12-2006, 01:10 PM

PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER GONE WILD
By Michelle Malkin · April 12, 2006 12:19 PM

http://michellemalkin.com/

My syndicated column today follows up on Steve White, the creepy science teacher and Democrat state representative candidate in Alabama who showed his students that insipid "A--hole" video. Intro:

Last month, the unhinged government school teacher of the month award went to Jay Bennish — a left-wing, anti-war screecher/teacher who used his high school world geography class in the Denver area as a Bush-bashing bully pulpit.
This month, the leading nominee is one Steve White. Like Bennish, this public school teacher reportedly strayed far from his core subject — he's an eighth grade science teacher in Alabama — in order to subject his students to his flaming, anti-war, anti-conservative views...

There are already some new developments since I filed the column. White is now on leave. And the Decatur Daily reports today that a parent told officials his daughter was shown a photo of a "half-naked" woman in a bikini in White's science class: http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/060412/teacher.shtml

An eighth-grade science teacher at West Limestone High School and candidate for state office is on administrative leave.

School officials are investigating allegations that he did more than show a derogatory Internet film of President Bush and his administration that repeated a vulgar word.

Mike Bloodworth said his daughter told him she not only saw the Bush film, but also saw an Internet photo of a "half-naked woman" in a University of Alabama bikini in Steve White's science class. "By no means do I approve," Bloodworth said. "And the classroom is not a place for a political stand. He needs to find a new job or be told to find a new job."

White has qualified to run for District 4 state representative, which includes portions of Limestone and Morgan counties. He has qualified as a Democrat for the seat that Micky Hammon, R-Decatur, now holds.

Probate Judge Mike Davis said Tuesday that White still is on the primary election ballot.

White has not returned phone or e-mail messages...

...Hammon said the public complaints forced school officials to address the situation with a more proper punishment.

On Tuesday, Limestone Superintendent Barry Carroll said White now is on administrative leave. Carroll said he received a call from a concerned parent Friday who made additional allegations against White. Carroll would not give details about those allegations, pending the outcome of the investigation.

Carroll did say the allegations were related to items on the Internet that White allegedly showed students on his computer this year. He said these allegations are separate from the Bush film. He would not say if the investigation includes a search of files on White's school computer...

...Carroll said Tuesday that the administration wrote a letter of reprimand to White for showing the film and placed it in his personnel file. The letter stated that if this conduct occurred again, "more serious disciplinary action would be taken."

He said White, who has taught for 10 years, has no prior reprimands in his file.

When Carroll received additional allegations Friday, he placed White on two days administrative leave. Carroll, who was out of town earlier this week, said he will meet with White today to discuss the investigation. "After a thorough investigation is completed, we will decide the appropriate action to be taken," Carroll said.

Expose the Left has video of Hammon's appearance on Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes discussing the case. http://www.exposetheleft.com/2006/04/11/bush-teacher-ahole/

Here's the West Limestone HS mission statement:

West Limestone teachers, administrators, parents, and community will share the responsibility for making sure the students' learning needs are the primary focus of all decisions that impact the work of the school. West Limestone's primary purpose is to ensure that each student acquires the skills to meet his/her true potential. We will guide students to a positive character development and provide a safe, structured, and academically challenging environment.

imbczar

04-22-2006, 07:25 AM

Wow. Why are you so obsessed with a few incidents that happen in high schools around the country? If your kid went to the school, I can understand the concern. Aren't there bigger fish to fry, regardless of your political leanings?

stresseater

04-22-2006, 03:40 PM

If you are OK with a child of yours being spoonfed misconceptions about the world and life in general then by all means don't check out these stories. Might I suggest you read a few more posts and maybe even make a few more BEFORE you start telling other that thier concerns are invalid. Had you done any reading on this forum before shooting off your fingers then you would know Jolie's concerns are very many and very diverse. Troll bowling anyone??? ;)

Jolie Rouge

04-22-2006, 08:55 PM

Jolie Rouge

04-24-2006, 08:57 PM

Gay fairy tale sparks civil rights debate
By Jason Szep
Mon Apr 24, 8:28 PM ET

LEXINGTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) - The crown prince rejects a bevy of beautiful princesses, rebuffing each suitor until falling in love with a prince. The two marry, sealing the union with a kiss, and live happily ever after.

That fairy tale about gay marriage has sparked a civil rights debate in Massachusetts, the only U.S. state where gays and lesbians can legally wed, after a teacher read the story to a classroom of seven year olds without warning parents first.

A parents' rights group said on Monday it may sue the public school in the affluent suburb of Lexington, about 12 miles west of Boston, where a teacher used the book "King & King" in a lesson about different types of weddings.

"It's just so heinous and objectionable that they would do this," said Brian Camenker, president of the Parents Rights Coalition, a conservative Massachusetts-based advocacy group.

Camenker said he believes the school, Joseph Estabrook Elementary, broke a 1996 Massachusetts law requiring schools to notify parents of sex-education lessons. "There is no question in my mind that the law is being abused here," he said.

"I wouldn't be surprised if in the next couple of weeks there was some kind of (legal) action taken," he said.

Lexington Superintendent of Schools Paul Ash said the school was under no legal obligation to inform parents the book would be read to the classroom of about 20 children. "This district is committed to teaching children about the world they live in. Seven-year-olds see gay people. They see them in the schools. They see them with their kids," he said.

"I see this as a civil rights issue. People who are gay have a right to be treated equally," he said. "If it were North Carolina, this would be a whole different story. But the law in Massachusetts is that gay marriage is legal. We have lots of gay families in Lexington."

The issue erupted in Lexington when parent Robin Wirthlin complained to the school's principle after her 7-year-old son told her about the reading last month. She then turned to the Parents Rights Coalition, which released a statement on the issue to Boston media last week.

Since then, Ash has been swamped by e-mails on the issue from across the country, some in support but many written in anger including one from a North Carolina man who threatened "to beat his head into the ground," he said.

"I handed that one to the police," said Ash.

CULTURAL DIVIDE

The issue underscores a growing cultural divide over the issue of gay rights at a time when legal challenges seeking permission for gays and lesbians to marry are pending in 10 states. Two U.S. states have legalized civil unions.

It also comes as California considers introducing school textbooks highlighting the role of gays in its history.

Some legal scholars said the depth of emotion on the issue nationwide means educators should include parents in the debate on exactly when to start educating children on homosexuality. "There is a difference between what is required and what is the right thing to do," said Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, which produces guidelines for schools and teachers on issues such as same-sex marriage.

"Some people believe that we are moving toward a kind of normalization of homosexuality as part of the fabric of our life. Others believe we are going in the other direction. Because we are now in a fork in the road where we are debating this, public schools are not the place to settle it," he said.

"King & King" was ranked eighth among the top 10 books people wanted removed from libraries in 2004, according to the American Library Association. Its Berkeley, California publisher, Tricycle Press, said complaints over the 32-page book first surfaced in 2004 in North Carolina.

An Oklahoma legislator last year cited the book as reason to impose new restrictions on library collections.

Written by two Dutch women, the book has sold about 15,000 copies in the United States since it was translated and published in 2002. A sequel, "King, King and Family," about a royal same-sex family written by the same authors, was published two years later.

"We believe all children deserve to see themselves in books and these books were published for the children in gay families and for their friends" said Tricycle publisher, Nicole Geiger.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060425/ts_nm/rights_gays_massachusetts_dc_1

Jolie Rouge

05-13-2007, 09:06 PM

Lawsuit over "Brokeback Mountain" in class
Sun May 13, 8:20 PM ET

CHICAGO - A girl and her grandparents have sued the Chicago Board of Education, alleging that a substitute teacher showed the R-rated film "Brokeback Mountain" in class.

The lawsuit claims that Jessica Turner, 12, suffered psychological distress after viewing the movie in her 8th grade class at Ashburn Community Elementary School last year.

The film, which won three Oscars, depicts two cowboys who conceal their homosexual affair.

Turner and her grandparents, Kenneth and LaVerne Richardson, are seeking around $500,000 in damages. "It is very important to me that my children not be exposed to this," said Kenneth Richardson, Turner's guardian. "The teacher knew she was not supposed to do this."

According to the lawsuit filed Friday in Cook County Circuit Court, the video was shown without permission from the students' parents and guardians.
The lawsuit also names Ashburn Principal Jewel Diaz and a substitute teacher, referred to as "Ms. Buford."

The substitute asked a student to shut the classroom door at the West Side school, saying: "What happens in Ms. Buford's class stays in Ms. Buford's class," according to the lawsuit.

Richardson said his granddaughter was traumatized by the movie and had to undergo psychological treatment and counseling.

In 2005, Richardson complained to school administrators about reading material that he said included curse words. "This was the last straw," he said. "I feel the lawsuit was necessary because of the warning I had already given them on the literature they were giving out to children to read. I told them it was against our faith."

Messages left over the weekend with CPS officials were not immediately returned.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070514/ap_en_mo/brokeback_lawsuit;_ylt=ApSLOXoeUDF9kSIOw7e9tzms0NU E

1) A "R" rated movie should not be shown in a Middle School class. Did they not have educational films to check out of the school's library ?

2) Why do I have the feeling that if this family had been Muslim instead of what I take to be Christian, that all their concerns would have been imediately tended too and the teacher in question reprimanded ?

Jolie Rouge

05-20-2007, 08:23 PM

Is the 'Have Sex and Take Drugs' brigade coming to your kids' school next?

In last week's installment of Great Moments in Public Education, we saw one teacher foisting Brokeback Mountain on students in one classroom and another school faking a surprise gun attack on sixth-graders. This week, it's Sex, Drugs, and CYA at a public school in Boulder, Colorado. The Denver Post reports on a recent assembly at Boulder High School in which a panelist encouraged students to engage in sex and drug use. His comments were met with laughter from fellow panelists and cheers from the audience.

Now, get this. When a mother and daughter complained about the remarks and read from a transcript of the assembly during a school board meeting, they were chastised--and told to stop reading what the panelists said because the school board members deemed it "inappropriate"

School district rethinks policies on CU panels
Complaints were made after a Conference on World Affairs panel at Boulder High last month on teen sex and drug use.
By John Ingold Denver Post Staff Writer
05/16/2007

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_5904322

Boulder - School officials here are re-evaluating their policies for allowing panels from the University of Colorado's Conference on World Affairs to be held at Boulder High School, after a parent and a student complained that a panel about teen sex and drug use was too graphic and permissive in tone.

The controversy stems from an April panel called "STDs: Sex, Teens and Drugs." The discussion was dotted with frank talk and provocative comments about sex and drugs. "I'm going to encourage you to have sex, and I'm going to encourage you to use drugs appropriately," panelist Joel Becker, a Los Angeles clinical psychologist, told the students. "And why I am going to take that position is because you're going to do it anyway."

But the panelists also encouraged the students to be responsible, to be educated and to make good choices. "This is about thinking about the choices you're making today and how they're going to affect you over the long haul," said Andee Gerhardt, a community-engagement leader with Ernst and Young.

Board president halts excerpts

Boulder High sophomore Daphne White and her mother, Priscilla, complained to the Boulder Valley school board last week about the panel, saying that the high school should not host events that tell students it is OK to use drugs and have sex. "The panel discussion was a completely irresponsible and dangerous invitation to Boulder High students to have sex and take drugs," Daphne told the board.

At one point, school board president Helayne Jones told Priscilla White to stop reading excerpts from the panel discussion because the language was inappropriate for the meeting. "But it was at Boulder High School," Priscilla White responded. "If they can listen to it, I think you can listen to it."

Board members agreed some of the language was inappropriate and asked officials to investigate. School district spokesman Briggs Gamblin said that as a result of the controversy, Boulder High will no longer require students to attend the panel discussions and will more carefully vet the panels. As of now, Gamblin said, the high school intends to continue hosting the panel discussions every spring. "We think the overall message was one of being positive and healthy in your choices and taking personal responsibility for not making choices until you are ready to make them," Gamblin said.

"Responsibility ... to be candid"

Conference on World Affairs director Jim Palmer said Boulder High students and a representative from the school choose the topics each year and help choose the panelists. He said none of the panelists told the students they should or shouldn't use drugs or have sex. Rather, he said, the panelists told students to make decisions that are appropriate for them and to know the consequences. "When you're talking to high school students about these issues," Palmer said, "I think there is a responsibility on the part of adults to be informed and to be candid."

--------

The assembly was taped. Students were required to attend. KHOW radio talk show Caplis and Silverman have audio of the panel.

http://2005.khow.com/pages/shows-caplis_silverman.html?feed=119776&article=2139028

Another parent assailed the school administration's CYA tactics in the matter.
http://denver.yourhub.com/Boulder/Stories/Sound-Off/General-Sound-Off/Story~307584.aspx

The organizers say they were just speaking "candidly."
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5539466,00.html

Here are the panelists who appeared at the sex & drugs assembly: http://www.colorado.edu/cwa/cgi-bin/list_sched.cgi?panelist=750&year=2007

Joel L. Becker http://www.colorado.edu/cwa/bios.html?id=750&year=2007
Andee Gerhardt http://www.colorado.edu/cwa/bios.html?id=773&year=2007
Antonio Sacre http://www.colorado.edu/cwa/bios.html?id=604&year=2007
Sanho Tree http://www.colorado.edu/cwa/bios.html?id=542&year=2007

Jolie Rouge

06-01-2007, 09:27 PM

5th Grade Teacher Has Children Sign "Bring Our Soldiers Home" Letter

by Lisa De Pasquale — 06-01-2007 @ 06:52 PM Reader Comments (2)

http://www.humanevents.com/rightangle/index.php?id=22973&title=5th_grade_teacher_has_children_sign_brin

Fifth Grade Teacher Jan Bobek of Soldotna Elementary School in Soldotna, Alaska recently sent a brightly colored letter signed by her students that said, "Bring our soldiers home! They are our family." The letter was forwarded to me by a staffer who received it in the DC office of a Congressman from another state. One can only assume that similar letters were sent to other congressional offices.

Given that the students only had to sign their name, there is no educational value in this note to a congressional office from another state. It's clearly a political message that's being sent by the teacher on taxpayers' dime.

I experienced a similar situation when I was in 12th grade. My teacher asked the entire class to write a letter against a piece of legislation under the guise that it was practice for writing a business letter. If passed, the bill would have affected her job since it was to increase scholarship standards in the course she taught. Since I was 18 (and a smart aleck), I spoke up in class against the assignment. Nine and Ten year-olds can't be expected to do the same.

If you would like to voice your opinion on Ms. Bobek's assignment on the taxpayers' dime, contact the county's K-12 curriculum director here. Ms. Bobek's contact information appears on the letter ...

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/images/letterwar002.jpg
Click over to Human Events for the full-size image

Now, imagine the uproar if a public school teacher forced her students to sign and send letters with camouflage that said: "We support the troops--and their mission. They are our family." or "No retreat, no surrender!"

:mad:

Oh, here's a reminder about what the jihadis are teaching their kiddies:

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/images/deathallah.jpg

YouTube Deletes Copy of Hamas Video
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=25654_YouTube_Deletes_Copy_of_Hamas_Video&only

The Hamas supporter at YouTube who goes by the name “engahmed” has now gotten YouTube to delete the second copy of his evil child abuse video; isn’t it nice that YouTube is protecting the jihadis’ copyrights, while allowing them to post videos glorifying terrorism and murder?

So here it is again, with a local copy this time, because Hamas should not be allowed to hide this stuff, with or without YouTube’s complicity.

Children in Gaza perform a monstrous “play,” dressed as suicide bombers and terrorists, waving knives and guns, in front of a crowd of doting parents. 20070527HamasKidsPlay.mov

This has been around awhile, but since it proves my point so well, it’s worth a reminder. http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/1747.htm

Jolie Rouge

06-01-2007, 09:39 PM

Anti-war educators exploit 'The Children' in the name of peace

Ready to gag? Check out this nursery school video from NYC, in which three-year-old toddlers are used as props for an anti-war protest at a local politician's office. The video is at NYPress politics blog: http://www.nypress.com/blogx/display_blog.cfm?bid=94319322

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/images/toddlerprotest.jpg

That green construction-paper thingie that looks like it's about to devour the two little boys is a "Tree of Peace." The NYPress explains:

A protest against the war in Iraq, the May 30 gathering drew a small group of moms, dads and toddlers from a classroom at Amalgamated Nursery School to the district office doorstep of Congressman Eliot Engel (D-Bronx/Westchester/Rockland) The handmade tree, crafted by 17 children during pre-school class time, was a statement against American troops remaining in Iraq and a call to pursue peaceful paths to end all world conflicts. This gift, however, seemed more like a Trojan horse, designed to gain an invitation inside so that the children’s far-left leaning parents could rail against the war and the congressman’s initial vote in support of it.

Allah recounts several other examples of Left-Wing Political Child Abuse.
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/05/31/video-anti-war-tools-use-three-year-olds-as-protest-props/

See also : Video: The littlest moonbat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8x14cLGh5o&eurl=

Via FR. Imagine one of Olbermann’s special comments delivered by someone who’s not just likeable but downright adorable. She’d pull twice his audience and MSNBC could probably get away with paying her in ice cream and coloring books. Dan Abrams, call your office!

Jolie Rouge

06-01-2007, 10:16 PM

I *still* find this one disturbing ... http://www.bigbigforums.com/news-information/515355-abusing-kids-art.html?highlight=left-wing+Greenberg

Jolie Rouge

07-26-2007, 09:54 AM

Do you know what your kids are learning in their public school classrooms?
Stanley Kurtz examines how Saudi-backed teaching materials have found their way into American education:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjRhZjYwMjU4MGY5ODJmM2MzNGNhNzljMzk4ZDFiYmQ

Believe it or not, the Saudis have figured out how to make an end-run around America’s K-12 curriculum safeguards, thereby gaining control over much of what children in the United States learn about the Middle East. While we’ve had only limited success paring back education for Islamist fundamentalism abroad, the Saudis have taken a surprising degree of control over America’s Middle-East studies curriculum at home.

How did they do it? Very carefully…and very cleverly. It turns out that the system of federal subsidies to university programs of Middle East Studies (under Title VI of the Higher Education Act) has been serving as a kind of Trojan horse for Saudi influence over American K-12 education. Federally subsidized Middle East Studies centers are required to pursue public outreach. That entails designing lesson plans and seminars on the Middle East for America’s K-12 teachers. These university-distributed teaching aids slip into the K-12 curriculum without being subject to the normal public vetting processes. Meanwhile, the federal government, which both subsidizes and lends its stamp of approval to these special K-12 course materials on the Middle East, has effectively abandoned oversight of the program that purveys them (Title VI).

Enter the Saudis. By lavishly funding several organizations that design Saudi-friendly English-language K-12 curricula, all that remains is to convince the “outreach coordinators” at prestigious, federally subsidized universities to purvey these materials to America’s teachers. And wouldn’t you know it, outreach coordinators or teacher-trainers at a number of university Middle East Studies centers have themselves been trained by the very same Saudi-funded foundations that design K-12 course materials. These Saudi-friendly folks happily build their outreach efforts around Saudi-financed K-12 curricula.

So let’s review. The United States government gives money — and a federal seal of approval — to a university Middle East Studies center. That center offers a government-approved K-12 Middle East studies curriculum to America’s teachers. But in fact, that curriculum has been bought and paid for by the Saudis, who may even have trained the personnel who operate the university’s outreach program. Meanwhile, the American government is asleep at the wheel — paying scant attention to how its federally mandated public outreach programs actually work. So without ever realizing it, America’s taxpayers end up subsidizing — and providing official federal approval for — K-12 educational materials on the Middle East that have been created under Saudi auspices. Game, set, match: Saudis.

Rick Moran has more at The American Thinker and wonders:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/07/saudis_in_the_classroom.html

“Who could ever believe that a foreign country would be able to influence the curricula of American schools in such a way? And do it without any oversight by the federal government?

Maybe the feds could start a program “No Slanted View Of Middle Eastern History Left Behind.”

The curriculum in our government schools is lousy and polluted enough without the stealth infiltration of Saudi propaganda. Time for some oversight and loophole-closing. Anyone in Congress awake?

A couple of years ago I browsed through my niece’s high school history book and was amazed to discover that Jimmy Carter was one of our greatest Presidents, and that Gorbachev ended the Cold War!

So this isn’t surprising. We’re living at the onset of the misinformation age and things will only get worse.

It’s not always obvious. My kids studied the Middle East in Sixth Grade Social Studies. I complained at a board meeting that they had to memorize the Five Pillars of Islam, yet the curriculum never even mentioned Christianity or Judaism. There was nothing blatantly anti-Semitic or anti-infidel (I would have noticed;) however, Islam, as well as the entire M.E., was portrayed as culturally rich and bucolic.

This type of thing has been going on for years in the name of multiculturalism. Almost all world history texts have to be signed off by numerous ethnic and cultural pressure groups before they will be published. Diane Ravitch of the Hoover Institution and Brookings has carefully documented the process in The Language Police, published in 2003.

Islamic groups carefully monitor what is going into the history books, and almost all of the most popular history texts adopted by the states paint Islam in wonderful light. Therefore, gullible students learn how glorious, highly advanced Muslim culture “spread” throughout North Africa and the Middle East, whereas Christian culture “conquered” and “invaded” other lands.

Jolie Rouge

07-26-2007, 09:59 AM

Flashback: This is a Saudi textbook. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901769.html

This is a Saudi textbook.
(After the intolerance was removed.)
By Nina Shea
Sunday, May 21, 2006; Page B01

Saudi Arabia's public schools have long been cited for demonizing the West as well as Christians, Jews and other "unbelievers." But after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis -- that was all supposed to change.

A 2004 Saudi royal study group recognized the need for reform after finding that the kingdom's religious studies curriculum "encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the 'other.' " Since then, the Saudi government has claimed repeatedly that it has revised its educational texts.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, has worked aggressively to spread this message. "The kingdom has reviewed all of its education practices and materials, and has removed any element that is inconsistent with the needs of a modern education," he said on a recent speaking tour to several U.S. cities. "Not only have we eliminated what might be perceived as intolerance from old textbooks that were in our system, we have implemented a comprehensive internal revision and modernization plan." The Saudi government even took out a full-page ad in the New Republic last December to tout its success at "having modernized our school curricula to better prepare our children for the challenges of tomorrow." A year ago, an embassy spokesman declared: "We have reviewed our educational curriculums. We have removed materials that are inciteful or intolerant towards people of other faiths." The embassy is also distributing a 74-page review on curriculum reform to show that the textbooks have been moderated.

The problem is: These claims are not true.

A review of a sample of official Saudi textbooks for Islamic studies used during the current academic year reveals that, despite the Saudi government's statements to the contrary, an ideology of hatred toward Christians and Jews and Muslims who do not follow Wahhabi doctrine remains in this area of the public school system. The texts teach a dualistic vision, dividing the world into true believers of Islam (the "monotheists") and unbelievers (the "polytheists" and "infidels").

This indoctrination begins in a first-grade text and is reinforced and expanded each year, culminating in a 12th-grade text instructing students that their religious obligation includes waging jihad against the infidel to "spread the faith."

Freedom House knows this because Ali al-Ahmed, a Saudi dissident who runs the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs , gave us a dozen of the current, purportedly cleaned-up Saudi Ministry of Education religion textbooks. The copies he obtained were not provided by the government, but by teachers, administrators and families with children in Saudi schools, who slipped them out one by one.

Some of our sources are Shiites and Sunnis from non-Wahhabi traditions -- people condemned as "polytheistic" or "deviant" or "bad" in these texts -- others are simply frustrated that these books do so little to prepare young students for the modern world.

We then had the texts translated separately by two independent, fluent Arabic speakers.

Religion is the foundation of the Saudi state's political ideology; it is also a key area of Saudi education in which students are taught the interpretation of Islam known as Wahhabism (a movement founded 250 years ago by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab) that is reflected in these textbooks.

Scholars estimate that within the Saudi public school curriculum, Islamic studies make up a quarter to a third of students' weekly classroom hours in lower and middle school, plus several hours each week in high school. Educators who question or dissent from the official interpretation of Islam can face severe reprisals. In November 2005, a Saudi teacher who made positive statements about Jews and the New Testament was fired and sentenced to 750 lashes and a prison term. (He was eventually pardoned after public and international protests.)

The Saudi public school system totals 25,000 schools, educating about 5 million students. In addition, Saudi Arabia runs academies in 19 world capitals, including one outside Washington in Fairfax County, that use some of these same religious texts.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, has worked aggressively to spread this message. "The kingdom has reviewed all of its education practices and materials, and has removed any element that is inconsistent with the needs of a modern education," he said on a recent speaking tour to several U.S. cities. "Not only have we eliminated what might be perceived as intolerance from old textbooks that were in our system, we have implemented a comprehensive internal revision and modernization plan." The Saudi government even took out a full-page ad in the New Republic last December to tout its success at "having modernized our school curricula to better prepare our children for the challenges of tomorrow." A year ago, an embassy spokesman declared: "We have reviewed our educational curriculums. We have removed materials that are inciteful or intolerant towards people of other faiths." The embassy is also distributing a 74-page review on curriculum reform to show that the textbooks have been moderated.

The problem is: These claims are not true.

A review of a sample of official Saudi textbooks for Islamic studies used during the current academic year reveals that, despite the Saudi government's statements to the contrary, an ideology of hatred toward Christians and Jews and Muslims who do not follow Wahhabi doctrine remains in this area of the public school system. The texts teach a dualistic vision, dividing the world into true believers of Islam (the "monotheists") and unbelievers (the "polytheists" and "infidels").

This indoctrination begins in a first-grade text and is reinforced and expanded each year, culminating in a 12th-grade text instructing students that their religious obligation includes waging jihad against the infidel to "spread the faith."

Freedom House knows this because Ali al-Ahmed, a Saudi dissident who runs the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs , gave us a dozen of the current, purportedly cleaned-up Saudi Ministry of Education religion textbooks. The copies he obtained were not provided by the government, but by teachers, administrators and families with children in Saudi schools, who slipped them out one by one.

Some of our sources are Shiites and Sunnis from non-Wahhabi traditions -- people condemned as "polytheistic" or "deviant" or "bad" in these texts -- others are simply frustrated that these books do so little to prepare young students for the modern world.

We then had the texts translated separately by two independent, fluent Arabic speakers.

Religion is the foundation of the Saudi state's political ideology; it is also a key area of Saudi education in which students are taught the interpretation of Islam known as Wahhabism (a movement founded 250 years ago by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab) that is reflected in these textbooks.

Scholars estimate that within the Saudi public school curriculum, Islamic studies make up a quarter to a third of students' weekly classroom hours in lower and middle school, plus several hours each week in high school. Educators who question or dissent from the official interpretation of Islam can face severe reprisals. In November 2005, a Saudi teacher who made positive statements about Jews and the New Testament was fired and sentenced to 750 lashes and a prison term. (He was eventually pardoned after public and international protests.)

The Saudi public school system totals 25,000 schools, educating about 5 million students. In addition, Saudi Arabia runs academies in 19 world capitals, including one outside Washington in Fairfax County, that use some of these same religious texts.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, has worked aggressively to spread this message. "The kingdom has reviewed all of its education practices and materials, and has removed any element that is inconsistent with the needs of a modern education," he said on a recent speaking tour to several U.S. cities. "Not only have we eliminated what might be perceived as intolerance from old textbooks that were in our system, we have implemented a comprehensive internal revision and modernization plan." The Saudi government even took out a full-page ad in the New Republic last December to tout its success at "having modernized our school curricula to better prepare our children for the challenges of tomorrow." A year ago, an embassy spokesman declared: "We have reviewed our educational curriculums. We have removed materials that are inciteful or intolerant towards people of other faiths." The embassy is also distributing a 74-page review on curriculum reform to show that the textbooks have been moderated.

The problem is: These claims are not true.

(continues ... )

Jolie Rouge

07-26-2007, 10:04 AM

The passages below -- drawn from the same set of Saudi texts proudly cited in the new 74-page review of curriculum reform now being distributed by the Saudi Embassy -- are shaping the views of the next generation of Saudis and Muslims worldwide. Unchanged, they will only harden and deepen hatred, intolerance and violence toward other faiths and cultures. Is this what Riyadh calls reform?

[email protected]

FIRST GRADE

" Every religion other than Islam is false."

"Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (Islam, hellfire): Every religion other than ______________ is false. Whoever dies outside of Islam enters ____________."

FOURTH GRADE

"True belief means . . . that you hate the polytheists and infidels but do not treat them unjustly."

FIFTH GRADE

"Whoever obeys the Prophet and accepts the oneness of God cannot maintain a loyal friendship with those who oppose God and His Prophet, even if they are his closest relatives."

"It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in God and His Prophet, or someone who fights the religion of Islam."

"A Muslim, even if he lives far away, is your brother in religion. Someone who opposes God, even if he is your brother by family tie, is your enemy in religion."

SIXTH GRADE

"Just as Muslims were successful in the past when they came together in a sincere endeavor to evict the Christian crusaders from Palestine, so will the Arabs and Muslims emerge victorious, God willing, against the Jews and their allies if they stand together and fight a true jihad for God, for this is within God's power."

EIGHTH GRADE

"As cited in Ibn Abbas: The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus."

"God told His Prophet, Muhammad, about the Jews, who learned from parts of God's book [the Torah and the Gospels] that God alone is worthy of worship. Despite this, they espouse falsehood through idol-worship, soothsaying, and sorcery. In doing so, they obey the devil. They prefer the people of falsehood to the people of the truth out of envy and hostility. This earns them condemnation and is a warning to us not to do as they did."

"They are the Jews, whom God has cursed and with whom He is so angry that He will never again be satisfied [with them]."

"Some of the people of the Sabbath were punished by being turned into apes and swine. Some of them were made to worship the devil, and not God, through consecration, sacrifice, prayer, appeals for help, and other types of worship. Some of the Jews worship the devil. Likewise, some members of this nation worship the devil, and not God."

"Activity: The student writes a composition on the danger of imitating the infidels."

NINTH GRADE

"The clash between this [Muslim] community (umma) and the Jews and Christians has endured, and it will continue as long as God wills."

"It is part of God's wisdom that the struggle between the Muslim and the Jews should continue until the hour [of judgment]."

"Muslims will triumph because they are right. He who is right is always victorious, even if most people are against him."

TENTH GRADE

The 10th-grade text on jurisprudence teaches that life for non-Muslims (as well as women, and, by implication, slaves) is worth a fraction of that of a "free Muslim male." Blood money is retribution paid to the victim or the victim's heirs for murder or injury:

"Blood money for a free infidel. is half of the blood money for a male Muslim, whether or not he is 'of the book' or not 'of the book' (such as a pagan, Zoroastrian, etc.).

"Blood money for a woman: Half of the blood money for a man, in accordance with his religion. The blood money for a Muslim woman is half of the blood money for a male Muslim, and the blood money for an infidel woman is half of the blood money for a male infidel."

ELEVENTH GRADE

"The greeting 'Peace be upon you' is specifically for believers. It cannot be said to others."

"If one comes to a place where there is a mixture of Muslims and infidels, one should offer a greeting intended for the Muslims."

"Do not yield to them [Christians and Jews] on a narrow road out of honor and respect."

TWELFTH GRADE

"Jihad in the path of God -- which consists of battling against unbelief, oppression, injustice, and those who perpetrate it -- is the summit of Islam. This religion arose through jihad and through jihad was its banner raised high. It is one of the noblest acts, which brings one closer to God, and one of the most magnificent acts of obedience to God."

[i]Nina Shea is director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House.

Jolie Rouge

09-12-2007, 01:51 PM

THE GIRL WITH THE PATRIOTIC BEADS
By Michelle Malkin · March 11, 2006 09:19 AM

Source: Albany Times-Union

Reader Maria L. C. sends an update on a case I blogged about last year--the schoolgirl who was sent home for wearing red, white, and blue jewelry she handcrafted as a tribute to her relatives in the military. The student, Raven Furbert, is suing the school district and the case has advanced:

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=459204&category=SCHENECTADY&BCCode=LOCAL&newsdate=3/11/2006

Student's suit over patriotic necklace will advance
First published: Friday, March 10, 2006

ALBANY -- A 13-year-old Mont Pleasant Middle School student who sued Schenectady school officials for the right to wear a red, white and blue necklace can move her case forward.
Advertisement

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Kahn ruled Tuesday that constitutional issues in the case should be further explored and addressed later, perhaps at trial.

The student, Raven Furbert, filed the civil rights violation claim in U.S. District Court in February 2005, after school officials banned her from wearing a necklace she made to honor soldiers serving overseas, such as her uncle and three other relatives.

School officials had asked for the case to be dismissed, saying the neck wear violated rules on potential gang-related items.

Furbert's attorney, Bob Keach, said the girl was happy with the decision but fears she will be suspended if she wears her beads.

-- Michele Morgan Bolton

High School Bans American Flag

On the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, students at one high school were not allowed to wear clothes with an American Flag.

Under a new school rule, students at Hobbton High School are not allowed to wear items with flags, from any country, including the United States.

The new rule stems from a controversy over students wearing shirts bearing flags of other countries.

Gayle Langston said her daughter, Jessica, was told to remove her stars and stripes t-shirt.

“Today she wanted to wear her shirt, and I had to tell her no,” said Langston. “She didn’t like it at all because I knew it would get her in trouble. Of all days, 9/11, she could not wear her American Flag shirt.”

The superintendent of schools in Sampson County calls the situation unfortunate, but says educators didn’t want to be forced to pick and choose which flags should be permissible.

http://www.nbc17.com/midatlantic/ncn/news.apx.-content-articles-NCN-2007-09-11-0027.html

They didn’t, in other words, want to act like grown-ups and make responsible judgments about acceptable displays of patriotism.

We are, as my friend Diana West puts it in her new book, in a state of perpetual adolescence–and it is this kind of idiocy that is weakening our will, resolve, and ability to fight our enemies at home and abroad. Like sheeple, we allow public educators to impart their gutless moral equivalence to the next generation.

The cancer of political correctness metastasizes.

Jolie Rouge

09-12-2007, 07:30 PM

Flag Ban Lifted

SAMPSON COUNTY, N.C – A North Carolina High School that came under national attention over their rule that prohibited students from wearing items with the American flag, or any flag from other countries, has lifted the ban.

Superintendent Dr. L. Stewart Hobbs, Jr said they have lifted the ban on flags and “from this point on, all dress code changes will be made at the school board level.”

http://www.nbc17.com/midatlantic/ncn/news.apx.-content-articles-NCN-2007-09-12-0013.html

But before I finish eating my hat…I get this mixed bag email.

I just received a return call from Dr. Hobbs, the Superintendent of
Schools. He told me this :

Last year, the school system had a problem with the Mexican flag protests, and with gang members using that to hide gang symbols. As a result, one principal banned all flags.

He has today, when he became aware of the problem, he lifted the flag ban. That decision will no longer be made at the individual school level.

He has also had a phone call already today from the ACLU !!!! Telling him
that if he makes a decison to allow only the US flag, THEY WILL SUE. Didn’t take long, huh ?

My imipression, upon speaking with him, is that Dr. Hobbs is very pro-American, and this issue was a snafu compounded by a prinicpal at one school, plus the ACLU.

Dr. Hobbs has informed me that he is currently consulting with the school’s
attorneys as to how to respond to the ACLU’s threat.

Jolie Rouge

10-06-2007, 08:00 PM

"Religion of Tolerance": Mich. Muslims Distribute Anti-Christian/Semitic Lit; Ill. Muslims KO Halloween, Christmas Parties, Pork
By Debbie Schlussel

Wake up and smell the Jihad.

Wake up and smell the Sharia.

Two Midwestern developments that should wake up all Americans because they portend of things to come for our entire nation:

* Illinois Muslims have succeeded in getting a public school district -- Ridgeland School District of Oak Lawn, Illinois in suburban Chicago -- to eliminate all pig products form the school cafeteria. And they've gotten the schools to eliminate Halloween and Christmas parties.

Will you just stand by as this happens?:

So long, Halloween parade. Farewell, Santa's gift shop.

The holiday traditions are facing elimination in some Oak Lawn schools this year after complaints that the activities are offensive, particularly to Muslim students.

Final decisions on which of the festivities will be axed will fall to the principals at each of Ridgeland School District 122's five schools, Supt. Tom Smyth said.

Parents expect that the announcement is going to add to the tension that has been building since officials agreed earlier this month to change the lunch menu to exclude items containing pork to accommodate Muslim students. News that Jell-O was struck from the menu caused such a stir that officials have agreed to bring it back. Gelatin is often made with tissue or bones of pigs or other animals.

That controversy now appears to have been been dwarfed by the holiday debate, which became so acrimonious Wednesday that police were called to Columbus Manor School to intervene in a shouting match among parents.

"It's difficult when you change the school's culture," said Columbus Manor Principal Sandy Robertson.

Elizabeth Zahdan, a mother of three District 122 students, says she took her concerns to the school board this month, not because she wanted to do away with the traditions, but rather to make them more inclusive. "I only wanted them modified to represent everyone," she said. . . .

There's just not time in the six-hour school day to celebrate every holiday, said Smyth, who sent the message to principals that they need to "tone down" the activities that he sees as eating too much into instructional time. "We have to think about our purpose," Smyth said. "We have to think about our purpose," Smyth said. "Are we about teaching reading, writing and math or for parties or fund-raising during the day?"

[DS: So glad he's suddenly concerned about the "Three Rs". Where was he on those before the Muslims whined?]

Robertson is hoping to strike compromises that will keep traditions alive and be culturally acceptable to all students -- nearly half of whom are of Arab descent at Columbus Manor, she says. Fewer than a third of students districtwide are of Arab descent, according to Smyth.

* Muslims in Reagan Country a/k/a Macomb County, Michigan (which used to be home to the "Reagan Democrats") are distributing anti-Christian and anti-Semitic literature and it barely gets a notice in a very tiny local paper (the low-circulation Macomb Daily). Interestingly, this happened just a few months after the opening of the first mosque in Macomb County. Hmmm . . . I'm sure that had nothing to do with this. It's a "Religion of Peace":

Police said anti-Jewish and anti-Christian fliers were found on cars parked in a lot on the northwest corner of 15 Mile and Ryan roads. Sterling Heights police Detective Sgt. Paul Jesperson said three separate complaints were filed by residents Tuesday who found the fliers on their windshields.
He said the flier said: "Kill Jews and Christians if they don't believe in Allah and Mohammad."

It further advises people to "Fight those who do not believe."

"I really don't know what it means other than suggesting violence to Jews and Christians," Jesperson said. "We certainly have no intentions of stifling someone's religious beliefs but it is most certainly a violation of the law if you're condoning violence with this hate literature."

[DS: I'm sure the word "violence" has "many interpretations," just like "Jihad."]

Jesperson said police received three complaints and the fliers were seen on at least 15 other cars in the parking lot.

He said there was no damage to the cars and no one else filed a complaint. "I would imagine many people thought this was some type of advertising flier and didn't even read it," Jesperson said.

[DS: Would he be this dismissive if it was an anti-Muslim flier?]

Sam Richardson, who was shopping at the Kroger store on Tuesday, saw the flier on his windshield while walking to his car and asked his 11-year-old daughter to remove it. He said she walked toward him while she was reading the flier and then she started crying. "She asked me what the flier was all about," said Richardson, an electrician at General Motors. "I tried to explain to her what it meant and I then had to explain it to my 7-year-old son."

The operators of the New Sahara restaurant, located near the Kroger store, said they are Chaldean Catholics and do not condone violence against others who have opposite religious beliefs.

[DS: Uh, Chaldeans (Iraqi Catholics, who are, indeed, Christians and are mostly friendly with Jews)) don't do this. Muslims do.]

Jay, a longtime waiter at Sahara, said he was unaware of the fliers. "These are touchy times and I don't want my name used," said Jay. "But we are peace-loving people who love the United States and feel all people can live here harmoniously."

Richardson said it is hard for a parent to explain to his children why some people want to kill others simply because of religious disagreements. He told his son and daughter that regardless of their feelings about another individual, a person in the United States has a right to practice any religion."We try to protect our children but we cannot shield them from all of the hate in this world," said Richardson, a Sterling Heights resident. "The person who put this flier on my car saying someone should be killed understandably upset my daughter and son."

Police said they will continue to investigate the fliers.

But don't worry about these Muslims getting prosecuted by authorities the way Christians and Jews would be if they did the same. Recently, anti-Muslim lit (which I think the Muslims fabricated for victimhood, as they often do) was a cause celebre when it was "sent to" (a/k/a probably fabricated by) the usual suspects, ADC's "former" Islamic Terrorist-in-chief, Imad Hamad, and CAIR Michigan chief and Nation of Islam acolyte, Dawud Walid.

In both those cases, it was all over the TV, both of Detroit's major newspapers, etc. Not the case in this instance. Because Infidels don't count. Only Muslims do.

So, what is it that Muslims are always saying about how theirs is a "Religion of Tolerance"?

The only tolerance you get with Islam is that which they expect from you, as they take your rights, your religion, and your country away from you . . . while you watch.

Don't expect any tolerance from them in return. Or you'll be waiting an eternity.

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2007/10/religion_of_tol.html

Jolie Rouge

10-06-2007, 08:01 PM

Comments

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archi...on_of_tol.html

They have been trying the exact same thing in Maryland. Every school district, though, allows Muslims (or any other religious group) to miss school with an excused absence for a religious holiday. But that is not good enough for the Muslims. They want everyone to submit to their holidays and have the whole school closed or else ban Christian and Jewish holidays.

This thing will continue until we ban Muslim immigration, which we need to do.

Posted by: steve ventry at October 2, 2007 11:00 AM

I suppose this is how muslims Trick or Treat....err Jihad or Amnesty. Instead of being worried about our cars being raided with shaving cream and eggs, we should be on high alert for bombs. Even though I don't celebrate Holloween now that Debbie brought this issue up, I may consider buying pig gelatin and searching for a local sleeper cell.

For those who want to push or "introduce" Sharia Law into this country. If you don't like Holloween, then don't celebrate it. If you don't like pork, then don't eat it. If you want to live in a country dominated by Caliphate jurisdiction, then go back to the G-d forsaken cesspools where(religious) freedom,rights, and liberties are not recognized, where totalitarianism prevails. If democracy conflicts with your religious principles, then I wouldn't recommend you live in America. There is not a chance on hell ( or is there) will we idly sit by and permit you to subvert our way of life with your 7th century primitive death cult. Nor will we flinch from your empty threats. Its about time we gather the miniscule amount of courage we have left and use it to hunt these people down and show them who makes the rules here. I'm sick and tired of being bitch slapped around by these illiterate throwbacks.If they get their way, everyone across America will be required to fast on Ramadan just to show how ultra tolerant we are towards islam so not to offend the fasting muslims by eating in their presence. We must do whatever it takes to avoid coming to that point. Such types don't deserve a welcoming wagon into this country. The more they impose their agenda, the less tolerance I have towards them.

Detective Jesperson's statement, "We certainly have no intentions of stifling someone's religious beliefs but it is most certainly a violation of the law if you're condoning violence with this hate literature." is the perfect example of the catch-22 we're in.

The command to kill infidels until they submit to Islam or agree to live as dhimmis is a direct quote of verse 9:29 of the Qur'an.

So, their religious belief IS to condone violence. The good detective, in his undoubted ignorance of Islamic teaching, correctly called the Qur'an "hate literature".

All we have to do now is collectively recognize that fact and move to the next logical step which is to outlaw it.

Posted by: stevecanuck at October 2, 2007 01:51 PM