Letters To Heroes
I was astonished at the sentiments expressed by Mike Root, Angela Bishop and their fifth grade students as related in Callie White’s article in the Aberdeen Daily World, “Harbor Kids Remember Our Soldiers Serving Overseas,” that appeared on Christmas day.
Ms. White characterizes as “overreaching” one student’s fear of being shot on the way to school if U.S. troops were not occupying countries around the world. Ms. Bishop singled out for approval a fifth grade student’s letter that claimed U. S. soldiers are “making a ‘path of peace’ for generations to come. You are out on the battle field fighting for independence of the present and future.” Mr. Root asks, “what better way to cheer a soldier up than with a pack of fan letters from his class. . . .”
Let me take Mr. Root’s comment first. What better way? One thing that occurs to me would be for thousands of citizens in our community to take to the streets, with their children and their children’s teachers, marching, demonstrating, demanding that the U. S. government withdraw all U.S. troops from more than 750 bases in more than 125 countries around the world. Thousands of citizens marching on Washington, D. C. demanding the end to the U. S. empire and the restoration of our republic. Thousands of citizens demanding that government look to the general welfare rather than the welfare of generals.
Where did Ms. Bishop’s students learn that the invasion of another country in a preventive war, a war crime, means that U. S. soldiers are making a “path of peace” and “fighting for independence?” In her class, by writing letters to “heroes?” Peace for whom; independence for whom; at what cost? This is a fantasy land and a disservice to the young people who will one day be called upon to take the place of those occupation forces - - called upon by recruiters in their schools, urged on by teachers who filled them with propaganda about the heroic actions of U. S. troops overseas.
U. S. soldiers are not fighting for liberty; they are occupying countries that the United States invaded. Heroes? Our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the 150,000 mercenaries who supplement them, are being used as imperial storm troopers, as occupation forces. Torture. Indiscriminate killing. Secret prisons. Extraordinary renditions. The compliance of citizens in these grotesque actions has been extracted through fear. Of course the “overreaching” student reflects the propaganda being fed to all of us - - we are fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them here.
What better way, Mr. Root? How about teaching students the difference between a republic and an empire? How about teaching students that no republic in history has lasted more than 300 years - - that they have been destroyed as they degenerated into empires? Instead of “a pack of fan letters,” how about teaching them to write letters about their inheritance being squandered by the imperial dreams (nightmares?) of their leaders?
LinkLabels: Education, Iraq, Iraq War
A Socialist Plot
by Paul Krugman
Suppose, for a moment, that the Heritage Foundation were to put out a press release attacking the liberal view that even children whose parents could afford to send them to private school should be entitled to free government-run education.
They’d have a point: many American families with middle-class incomes do send their kids to school at public expense, so taxpayers without school-age children subsidize families that do. And the effect is to displace the private sector: if public schools weren’t available, many families would pay for private schools instead.
So let’s end this un-American system and make education what it should be — a matter of individual responsibility and private enterprise. Oh, and we shouldn’t have any government mandates that force children to get educated, either. As a Republican presidential candidate might say, the future of America’s education system lies in free-market solutions, not socialist models.
O.K., in case you’re wondering, I haven’t lost my mind, I’m drawing an analogy. The real Heritage press release, titled “The Middle-Class Welfare Kid Next Door,” is an attack on proposals to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. ... And Rudy Giuliani’s call for “free-market solutions, not socialist models” was about health care, not education...
The truth is that there’s no difference in principle between saying that every American child is entitled to an education and saying that every American child is entitled to adequate health care. It’s just a matter of historical accident that we think of access to free K-12 education as a basic right, but consider having the government pay children’s medical bills “welfare,“ with all the negative connotations that go with that term.
And conservative opposition to giving every child in this country access to health care is, in a fundamental sense, un-American.
Here’s what I mean: The great majority of Americans believe that everyone is entitled to a chance to make the most of his or her life. Even conservatives usually claim to believe that...
But a child who doesn’t receive adequate health care, like a child who doesn’t receive an adequate education, doesn’t have the same ... chances in life as children who get both these things. And insurance is crucial to receiving adequate health care...
So how can conservatives defend the indefensible, and oppose giving children the health care they need? By trying the old welfare queen in her Cadillac strategy (albeit without the racial innuendo that made it so effective when Reagan used it). That is, to divert public sympathy from people who really need help, they’re trying to change the subject to the supposedly undeserving recipients of government aid. Hence the emphasis on the evils of “middle-class welfare.”
Proponents of an expansion of children’s health care have, as they should, responded to this strategy with facts and figures. Congressional Budget Office estimates show that S-chip expansion would, in fact, primarily benefit those who need it most: the great majority of children receiving coverage under an expanded program would otherwise have been uninsured.
But the more fundamental response should be, so what?
We offer free education, and don’t worry about middle-class families getting benefits they don’t need, because that’s the only way to ensure that every child gets an education — and giving every child a fair chance is the American way. And we should guarantee health care to every child, for the same reason.
NY Times link (sign up required)Labels: Education, Heritage Foundation, Krugman
