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Friday, October 19, 2012

Our public schools promote the military

From Wichita Peace and Freedom Party Examiner;


In our Kansas Public Schools today, we have what they call “leadership class.” After spending an afternoon in one of these “leadership classrooms,” at a Kansas Middle School, it becomes obvious that they are misnamed. They should be called military indoctrination class.
The room is filled with all kinds of military flags, the US Navy, Marines and all other branches of the military. They have patches that military personnel can earn all around the walls. They have a hallway with pictures of sleek military weapons that the US now has, including the unmanned drones that President Barack Obama is using to assassinate alleged leaders of groups the US has chosen to condemn, along with innocent people who are nearby, including children.
In this one particular classroom, there is a pair of plastic bloody hands on the window. What that is supposed to symbolize I don’t know. The teachers of these classes all dress in full military uniforms. The manuals they study from are designed to get the students familiar with military terms and attitudes.
Wichita is a very pro-military town. It also has a large peace community and a peace group, The Peace and Social Justice Center of South Central Kansas, which opposes using public schools to glorify and promote militaristic attitudes among the young and impressionable students of today.
With unnecessary wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Colombia, we are not happy to have such classes promoting what many of us feel is an immoral institutions that simply uses violence to push America’s weight around in such places as the Middle-east and reinforces the world’s last great empire.
The Peace and Social Justice Center of South Central Kansas has, in the past, promoted an opt-out program to allow students or their parents to not be forced to take these classes. However, most students aren’t even aware they have such an option and have no real reason to question such programs.
We need to oppose our public schools being used to support a murderous empire every chance we get. I found the room to be revolting.


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