Biggs High School, student clash over anti-war display- (Butte Co, CA)

[fed-up]

Biggs is a small, rural (repub) community between Sacto and Chico

http://www.chicoer.com/newshome/ci_5191479

Biggs High School, student clash over anti-war display
By RYAN OLSON - Staff Writer
Article Launched: 02/09/2007 12:07:01 AM PST


BIGGS -- The family of a Biggs High School freshman claims administrators violated her First Amendment rights by removing a large display against the Iraq war that they put up on campus Thursday morning.
Keosha Chambers objected to the school's homecoming theme, "Support Our Troops." The festivities included a "Military Day" Thursday where students were encouraged to wear garb relating to the armed forces.

Chambers was also concerned about the Iraq war where thousands of American soldiers have lost their lives.

"I felt sad and wondered why nobody would speak about this," she said.

...snip

[pepperbear]

1. She deserves a UGOGIRL!

[Solly Mack]

2. Yay! Keosha Chambers!!!!

"I felt sad and wondered why nobody would speak about this," she said.

Because as long as no one talks about the death and dying, they can pretend it's all ribbons and "garb"

[unpossibles]

3. good for her. Sadly, I think it has been decided that HS students essentially

don't have any first amendment rights when in school, but I could be wrong.

Either way, good for her for standing up for what she believes in, despite popularity of her decision. We - our nation - needs more people like her.

"students were encouraged to wear garb relating to the armed forces."
of course - have to get them ready to wear the real thing.

[DarkTirade]

11. The schools have decided that, yes

but every time it's taken to court, the courts side with the students' rights.

[Trillo]

14. Sounds like a "civil" Justice Department Branch

needs to have an office in every school. I write "civil", because I believe that the Justice Department itself errs by not prosecuting "civil" violations as a routine matter.

This may be a boon to lawyers who might pro bono a case if they hear about it, but it also tends to prevent civil rights from being enforced equally among all.

Surely we have all read about the students who got to do something others couldn't because Mommy / Daddy / Uncle / Aunt (My Cousin Vinny) is a lawyer.

[DarkTirade]

15. What, and risk giving the kids the impression that they're human beings?

Heaven forbid. :sarcasm:

[unpossibles]

19. that's good to know

I honestly wasn't sure, and it's been a while personally.

[DarkTirade]

20. This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately

between the fact that the new year has come and my 10 year reunion is that much closer around the corner, and the fact that my little sister is still in high school.
The only way the schools can actually enforce things like the dress code and the no violence policies are if the students and parents actually agree to them. Which is why the last ten or fifteen years they've started making students and parents sign a piece of paper agreeing to follow the school's code of conduct.
I learned this a few years ago when my little sister was being stalked by some guy in middle school, and he actually cornered her at school. Wouldn't let her leave. So she smacked him with her notebook. Afterwards, a teacher informed her that if she'd been seen doing that, SHE would have been the one to get in trouble. Because even acting in self-defense is against school policy. Ridiculous, right? Her ONLY option according to school policy would be to find a teacher. Nevermind that she was being physically cornered, and would have been unable to walk away without resorting to the aforementioned act of self-defense. From then on my parents (and my brother, he has a daughter school right now) stopped signing those pieces of paper at the beginning of every year.
It's sad that the only way to protect your children's rights is to refuse to agree to the school's code of conduct.
For all parents out there who have children going to schools that send out those pieces of paper: DON'T sign them and make sure your children don't sign them as well. You might have to call the school and tell them that you're not signing them, because some schools will try to use grades or threats of detention to force them.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. "Military Day" .. where students were encouraged to wear garb relating to the armed forces????

I'd be at the school board. How dare someone attempt to militarize my kids? Or is that the accepted conservative way of 'supporting our troops', dressing up like them?

[saigon68]

16. They should bring guns to school too.

Nothing like going all the way

Maybe they could burn a few dummies clad with towels on their heads

[mikelgb]

5. I would have dressed as a dead or wounded soldier

for military day

[dicknbush]

6. Or perhaps this......

Set up a table put a coffin on it dress up in a uniform lay in the coffin all day. Perhaps have a large bloody gapping hole in your head for real effect. I suppose you could put a manequin in the coffin so you wouldn't miss any classes.

[xchrom]

9. what an interesting response -- i'm especially intrigued by:

''Perhaps have a large bloody gapping hole in your head for real effect. ''

actually dressing as a wounded soldier is particularly apt -- since we will be paying exorbitantly for these soldiers wounds for many, many years.


to paraphrase: how do you ask a soldier to sustain brain damage for a lie.

[Mz Pip]

7. How is playing dress up

supporting the troops? Butte County is pretty conservative.

Perhaps, they could invite a recruiter to the campus so the support could include more than just dressing up and pretending to be a soldier.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[ThomCat]

10. It's a propaganda move.

If you can get people invested in our side in some trivial way then you can leverage that for greater support. People hate to change their mind.

So you get them to wear "cool" military stuff, and then you tell them that they are supporting the troups, and then you tell them that this means they support the war, and then they're less likey to oppose the war.

It's manipulative, dishonest, and classic.

[geardaddy]

8. Whenever I see the phrase "Support Our Troops"

like on a bumper sticker or a lawn sign, it makes me think that the people sporting the thing with that phrase aren't supporting the troops, but ordering everyone else to do so.

I imagine the following dialogue (confrontation):

rwinger: Support our troops!
me: No, YOU support our troops!

;)

[kingoth]

12. thats funny

when I see that magnet/bumper sticker I always think to myself are they genuine supporters of our American troops or are they fakes di guising their hypocritical real selves to fit in with the the rest. Too chicken shit to take a stance any where but online.

[IndianaGreen]

26. Prior to the war, Clear Channel radio stations sponsored several "Support the Troops"

rallies across the country. Like the good rightwingers that they are, Clear Channel appealed to people's misguided sense of patriotism in order to sell unquestioning support for the war. Here in Indianapolis, they even had the help of several fundie churches that were brainwashed into thinking that the war is what Jesus wanted to protect Israel.

Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays

(Third revised edition, New York: Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1917)

PATRIOTISM: A MENACE TO LIBERTY

What, then, is patriotism? "Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels," said Dr. Johnson. Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our times, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment for the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities of life as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the average workingman.

Gustave Hervé, another great anti-patriot, justly calls patriotism a superstition--one far more injurious, brutal, and inhumane than religion. The superstition of religion originated in man's inability to explain natural phenomena. That is, when primitive man heard thunder or saw the lightning, he could not account for either, and therefore concluded that back of them must be a force greater than himself. Similarly he saw a supernatural force in the rain, and in the various other changes in nature. Patriotism, on the other hand, is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.

Indeed, conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.

<snip>

We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that it will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations.

Such is the logic of patriotism.

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Writings/Anarchism/patriotism.html

[harpboy_ak]

27. I always tell them to tell Congress to fund Vets med benefits

We have a bunch of pickups around town with those silly yellow ribbon magnets, some of them flying flags too. I always tell them that if they really support the troops they'll write our congressional delegation once a month asking them to keep their promise and fully fund veterans' medical benefits. I know a bunch of vets who have been really screwed by long, long waiting lists at VA clinics and hospitals because they are underfunded.

[Trillo]

13. K&R n/t

[roody]

17. Lots of immigrant kids live there.

They join to help their families get a piece of the American dream. Plus their options are limited.

[kiwilover]

18. Sue Their Asses

Sue the school boards' asses and then give the money to vetern's rehab!!!

[sanskritwarrior]

21. They shouldn't have

taken down her sign, but she "objected to the theme"??? She objected to "supporting the troops"??

I'm one and I find that a little vbit offensive, they had no right to take her sign down, but jezz......I object to her objection at "supporting the troops".......I know I know, I am a bad guy because of this.......

[LeftyMom]

22. I'm assuming her objection is to the politicization of a prom theme, of all things.

:shrug:

Besides, how the hell are teenagers supposed to "support our troops?" They're too young to vote, most have little extra money (especially in some hick town out in Butte county,) a fair number haven't got a car to slap a magnet on. So what exactly are these kids who were prepubescent when the decision to go to war was made supposed to do to "suppourt our troops?" Oh yeah, they're supposed to sign up and die for ShrubCo. I can't imagine why anybody'd object to paying good money for prom night just to get some lameass recruitement message. I've have shit a brick myself, and I was a teenager in somewhat saner years when joining the military was more of a job and less of an inefficient means of suicide.

[sanskritwarrior]

23. I don't know how

teenagers support the troops.....I'll defend her right to psot her sign and keep it up, I just don't get how I am suppose to take her seriously for not "supporting the troops". Who said anything about joining up? I didn't, it's voluntary, if one wants to join they will and I will welcome them as brothers and sisters......

and I take offense to your idea that joining the military is an "inefficient way of killing oneself"...It is an honorable and noble profession no matter who our leaders are. I throw my hands up in the air when I read nonsense like this......Nothing in my 13 years as an enlisted man can prepare me for to debate someone with your position, it makes no sense to me.

[LeftyMom]

24. Hmm, I wouldn't go that far.

I'm reminded of the 31st passage of the tao te ching.

"Of all things, soldiers are instruments of evil,
Hated by men.
Therefore the religious man (possessed of Tao) avoids them.
The gentleman favors the left in civilian life,
But on military occasions favors the right.

Soldiers are weapons of evil.
They are not the weapons of the gentleman.
When the use of soldiers cannot be helped,
The best policy is calm restraint.

Even in victory, there is no beauty,
And who calls it beautiful
Is one who delights in slaughter.
He who delights in slaughter
Will not succeed in his ambition to rule the world.

The things of ill omen favor the right.
The lieutenant-general stands on the left,
The general stands on the right.
That is to say, it is celebrated as a Funeral Rite.]

The slaying of multitudes should be mourned with sorrow.
A victory should be celebrated with the Funeral Rite. "

In short, at times violence is unavoidable. It's never noble, it's always a sign that we've failed to find a way to peace, and good men should never perceive it as anything other than a terrible burden undertaken as a last resort and with a heavy heart.

So if that's the case, why call on our children to celebrate what is at best a necessary evil? And if we do, why not honor hospice workers or the vet who needles unadoptable dogs at the shelter? The difference is that we live in a culture that romanticizes militarism and violence, and that's precisely what's objectionable.

[sanskritwarrior]

25. uhhh.......

Thanks for the philosophy lesson, not sure it really applies.......Your opinion is definitely worthy, it's just anathema to me and my belief system as learned from my life's experiences.

[roody]

30. Thank you LeftyMom.

[Quantess]

29. It should be obvious that

Lately, "support the troops" has really meant "support the war".

Sadly, the pro-war folks and the neo-cons have abused the words "support the troops", and have reduced it to a slogan. The pro-war people, the chicken hawks, and armchair soldiers don't actually care a bit about the safety and well-being of the troops.

An anti-war display was that girl's way of supporting the troops. She clearly wants them to come home soon, alive.

[sanskritwarrior]

31. Not looking to argue

but why did the article say she "objected" to supporting the troops?

[Vidar]

28. Applauding Ms. Chambers.