Short News and Commentary
MILITANTS AGAINST THE MILITARY
The 9/11 attacks gave many Americans a deeper seriousness about the outside world and the necessity of defending ourselves against dangerous extremists. But not everyone.
Some Californians recently formed the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools, under the oddball slogan: “A war budget leaves every child behind.”
In a November 2005 interview with the BBC program “The World,” broadcast on many American public radio stations, the coalition’s press chief, Arlene Inouye, described her organization as an association of teachers, parents, and citizens that aims to “protect” high school students from military recruiters visiting their schools. Such recruiters, she warned, use tactics like giving away pencils to lure young people into dangerous work. Inouye explained, “We don’t allow junk food into our schools, so why allow military recruiters into them?”
Inouye identified herself during the interview simply as a speech therapist working in the Los Angeles public schools. A quick Google search, however, reveals that she is not only a teachers’ union official, but the author of an article (“Kick the Military Out of Your School! We Did in L.A. and So Can You!”) recently published in Dynamic magazine—an organ of the Young Communist League. “The militarization of our schools” and “the impact of military recruitment on high school students” are the major “threats” against which the YCL is currently seeking to “mobilize” public opinion. The Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools thus sounds suspiciously like what used to be called a Communist front group.
Of course, there isn’t much of an international Communist movement left for which to “front” anymore. But Western academics who cling to that thoroughly refuted ideology are still common enough. While exposing the supposedly hidden agenda of military recruiters, Inouye might have been more forthcoming about her own agenda. And the investigative journalists offering
her a prominent platform should surely have found this out for themselves and their listeners.
Some opponents of American military recruitment are naifs who believe freedom can be defended with hugs, kisses, and multicultural programming. Others, however, have more sinister aims. High school students and their parents are in greater need of enlightenment about these activists when they occupy academic positions in our public schools than about the well-understood hazards of military life.
—David Schaefer is a professor of political science at Holy Cross College.
THE BALLAD OF A LYING HEAD CASE
Jimmy Massey is the kind of soldier media folk often search out. The discharged Marine is a leader of “Iraq Veterans Against the War.” He has been a star of Cindy Sheehan’s anti-war tour and left-wing blogs and radio programs. His book Kill, Kill, Kill was published in France, and is being adapted for film. Peggy Seeger is selling a CD of her original song, “The Ballad of Jimmy
Massey.” He’s been invited to speak to students at universities like Cornell and Syracuse, and now travels the world giving speeches describing atrocities he says were committed by U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
Massey claims he and members of his unit intentionally killed more than 30 unarmed civilians in Iraq, including women and small children, and that he was just one of many Marines carrying out such attacks. Massey also admits to mental problems—for which he was discharged from the service—and to taking a host of medications to handle them. But that hasn’t stopped reporters for the Associated Press, USA Today, the National Catholic Reporter, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Vanity Fair, and many other media outlets from quoting him authoritatively without corroborating his grave charges. The A.P., for instance, sent three stories about Massey around the globe, including an interview promoting his book, and quoted him several other times talking about committing “cold-blooded, calculated murder” as a U.S. Marine.
The only problem is, it’s all rubbish. It so happens there were five reporters embedded with Massey’s Marine unit during the time he asserts they were marauding through Iraq. One of them, Ron Harris of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, got wind of Massey’s claims, checked them out, then revealed that eyewitness accounts show Massey’s stories are fabrications or mythifications
of real events.
This, however, has hardly slowed Massey’s lionization among Iraq critics. DVDs of his anti-military testimony are for sale on the Web for $100. At last report, he was a star of December’s
Perdana Global Peace Forum in Malaysia. Meanwhile, few to none of the hundreds of news reports about Massey’s murderous Marines have been retracted.
TV GENERATION
The Rockies are probably the best place in the nation to explore for energy. There’s the Overthrust Belt, with much of our remaining gas and oil, and the Powder River Basin, which now supplies one fourth of our coal, and there are vast stretches of tar sands and oil shales.
Today I’m doing an interview at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory just west of Denver, a collection of futuristic buildings with an occasional windmill popping up here and there. In the car, I’ve been listening to a CD of Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat, the best seller in which the New York Times columnist gently tries to persuade his readers that globalization is not such a bad thing. His observations are rather commonplace, but he’s got a tough assignment. His is an audience that writes daily letters to the editor warning, “Forget about these terrorists—George
Bush is the real threat to America.”
As I climb out of the car for my 9:00 a.m. appointment, a TV crew is disembarking from a van across the parking lot. “You guys doing a news story?” I ask. “No, we’re with the New York Times,” says the bushy-haired crew chief. “We’re doing a feature for the Discovery Channel.” I glance around the slightly disheveled group and, sure enough, there’s Thomas Friedman, attired in a leather coat and matching gloves.
“I was just listening to your book in the car!” I say, and we chat for a minute. He is now covering energy, and will interview the folks at NREL right after I’m through. “It’s not your grandmother’s energy crisis, with people sitting in gas lines,” he says. “But it’s more pervasive.”
I tell him I am writing a book on energy. “I’m big on nuclear,” I say. “I think it’s due for a revival. Are you doing anything on nuclear?” He gives me a blank look, as if I have just asked if he plans any bear hunting: “No.”
Inside, I spend the morning with Larry Kazmerski. He’s a high-spirited engineer and one of the world’s leading authorities on solar electricity. I listen for a while, then pose a question. “What do you think our ultimate solution is going to be?”
He eyes me cautiously. “You’re probably not going to believe this,” he says, “but around here we think it should be nuclear and solar. We’re big nuclear enthusiasts, although we don’t broadcast it much. I think we need nuclear to cover our base load of electricity, and solar for peaking power. Solar’s best right when we need it—on hot summer days. If we do that, we can retire fossil fuels—‘conserve’ them at least.”
I’m astonished. “You know, that’s exactly what I’m going to say in my book—we need a nuclear-solar alliance.”
His eyes widen. “I know a hundred people waiting to read that book. Our big problem in the Department of Energy is that the nuclear and solar people won’t talk to each other. The nuclears think the solars are a bunch of hippies, and the solars think the nuclears are a bunch of Nazis. I’ve tried breaking through the barrier but nobody pays much attention.”
I have to hand off Kazmerski, because Friedman is waiting to interview him. They meet outside in a small garden of photovoltaic panels with the Denver skyline in the background. Friedman walks Kazmerski through his paces. They do the obligatory “strolling together” shot, and then stand before a large solar panel.
“So then the reason solar energy is making it in Germany and Japan is because the government is supporting it?” says Friedman.
“Let him say it,” the director suggests. It takes a few more takes and a couple more interruptions, but they finally get it right. “The reason solar energy is succeeding in Germany and Japan and not here,” says Kazmerski, “is because governments in those countries are supporting it.”
Look for an in-depth report soon on the Discovery Channel about how solar energy can save the world.
—William Tucker is a TAEmag.com columnist.
TEACHING LESSONS
America’s colleges of education convinced state legislators years ago that only their graduates should be allowed to teach in public schools. Rather than coming out of traditional academic specialties, therefore, future teachers are products of a “how-to-instruct” curriculum that too often combines political correctness with content-light coursework.
Now the training of teachers is being undercut even further. Across the nation, colleges of education are promoting students less on grades, and more on attitudes and beliefs. The result: an irresistible opportunity for professors to promote ideological causes.
As reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education, evaluations of students interested in teaching increasingly ask “whether students value social justice, acknowledge white privilege, and agree to be change agents in battling sexism, racism, and homophobia.” In a typical example that illustrates how political activism is trumping academic knowledge, Washington State’s College of Education asks its professors to ensure that every student who advances through the program “exhibits an understanding of the complexities of race, power, gender, class, sexual orientation, and privilege in American society.”
The mission statement of the School of Education at UNC-Chapel Hill drones that “we are first and foremost concerned with the agenda of constructing democratic learning communities which are positioned in the larger society to support an agenda of social action which removes all forms of injustice.”
The Chronicle interviewed a host of students who were kicked out of education school for what they believe were their political views. Ed Swan, for instance, flunked an evaluation four times because, his professor charged, he “revealed opinions that have caused me great concern in areas of race, gender, sexual orientation, and privilege.” Swan’s children, incidentally, are Mexican American.
GO KNOCK YOURSELF OUT
The public high school in Berkeley, California recently informed students and parents of a new campus club. Falling right between “Chess...” and “Drama...” is the Condom Club, which recruits members as follows: “Having sex? Thinking of having sex? Sign up for Condom Club now. Bring your lunch and come to classroom G103…. Receive 12 free condoms a week. Free food.”
In addition to being published in the Student Daily Bulletin, this invitation was broadcast over the school’s P.A. system. No word on who thought kids would need a dozen a week. Maybe it’s just another example of Bay Area generosity with public funds.
—Jane Mack-Cozzo is a former teacher.
THE DOG THAT HASN’T BARKED
As I write, nearly 1,600 days have passed since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and still there has been no follow-up assault on American soil.
The U.S. has landed 20 million flights over the last year without a terrorist incident. Many millions of sealed trailer-size containers have entered U.S. ports since 9/11. More than 6 million immigrants have joined the American population. The U.S. remains the most open nation in the world, without terrorist attacks.
Is this just good luck? Or is it the result of good policy? Has President Bush succeeded—at least, so far—at the number-one task that Americans have assigned him, which is to keep them safe? Or should we make him change his strategy and tactics?
These questions are especially relevant today. Congress has passed a bill that restricts the ways terrorists can be interrogated. There’s outrage in the press at revelations that the National Security Agency has intercepted, without warrants, some international phone calls and e-mails that originate or end in the U.S. A new movie by Hollywood’s leading director takes a skeptical view of aggressive retaliation against terrorists.
The proportion of Americans who approve of Bush’s war against terror has tumbled from nine out of ten in early 2002 to barely one out of two today. The danger is that the further 9/11 recedes in memory, Americans will become shortsighted and soft, and forget what’s involved in avoiding further attacks.
The lack of follow-up terror attacks is the result of a U.S. response that has been aggressive and single-minded—at home, in Iraq, and in places we know little about. The policy is working. It has kept us safe. We tamper with it at our own extreme peril.
—James K. Glassman is a TAE columnist. This is adapted from TCSDaily.com.
I, I, ME, ME
In January, Sean Penn and Cindy Sheehan led an anti-Bush peace rally in Sacramento and made it clear that, ultimately, the Iraq war (and everything else) is all about them. Sheehan offered to create a new U.S. Department of History, with herself as its first Secretary. And Penn blamed his smoking habit on the President, saying “the stress of living under the current Administration” is making it impossible to quit.
NERD INEQUALITY
For the last three years, Google has sponsored a Code Jam in which computer geeks from around the world compete to solve thorny programming problems for a $10,000 grand prize. This year there were more than 14,500 contestants from 32 countries. And for the first time, a female—Stefanie Lietzke of Germany— qualified as one of the 100 finalists.
SUE THE DIRTY BOTTLERS
The New York Times recently reported that trial lawyers hope to extract billions of dollars in financial damages from the soft-drink industry for selling its sugared beverages to the “captive audience” of students in schools. If that seems far-fetched, so did the idea a few years ago that legal sharks would pull $246 billion out of tobacco companies.
