This week's column in The Stranger is up : "Veteran's Day" -- an update on the recent anti-military propaganda skit that was presented at a West Seattle High School panel discussion on the Iraq war.
The column presents some new information -- (1) contrary to the initial report in the P-I which stated that "no teachers or advisers were on hand or evidently even aware of the content", school district officials have admitted that school faculty and staff were involved in the skit itself, and (2) I report on West Seattle Principal Susan Dersé's response to my follow-up questions about the letter she wrote to the school community about the incident (the letter is posted here). I asked her to specifically explain what she is doing to "continuing to work with those students and their advisors in understanding this sensitive issue", and to give some concrete examples of what West Seattle High School did this year to "celebrate our veterans every year and in many ways".
How did Dersé respond? Take a guess, and read the column to find out if you were right!
Also, be sure to check out this week's letters to the editors!
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 01, 2005 08:12 AM | Email ThisDeny, Lie and create a smokescreen while never answering the questions.
She's just following the script!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: Norm on April 1, 2005 08:38 AMI attended my step-daughter's school last Veteran's Day. Fortunately she attends a private Christian school. I was treated with nothing by respect and politeness. It was only a week since I had returned from my last deployment, and when I mention that I got a standing ovation. I guess I cannot expect the same type of treatment from the Seattle public schools.
Posted by: James on April 1, 2005 09:04 AMWell now that depends...I don't see this so much in the liberal/conservative framework as in the smart accountable/stupid craven smokescreening framework. I've been opposed to the war from the beginning, but I find the details in the skit and the official response to it execrable. (I wrote to the principal too as a "liberal" and got a similar non-reply.) But at least Derse admitted wrongdoing to a degree. The school board letter was far more offensive. It didn't acknowledge anything wrong and actually invoked "freedom of speech" as being part of the issue here. Ironic, given the current Snohos flap that's come right on the heels of this.
And James, you type better without coffee than most of us with coffee...
Posted by: ChrisW on April 1, 2005 09:30 AMThis is just one more example of the extreme right wing of the Taliban Party trying to impose their small minded conformity on the rest of us. Chemically-enhanced Americans have rights, too. I wish I understood why right-wing extremists can't butt out of the private lives of Sexually Impulsive Americans.
Posted by: South County on April 1, 2005 09:40 AMTranslation: Don't criticize us; we're not as bad as Detroit.
Posted by: South County on April 1, 2005 09:43 AMI think it's safe to say this skit, and not Derse's blather, is truly representative of the way this school's faculty views our American military. These teachers see America as a force of evil in this world, more evil even than Saddam Hussein.
The kids involved (and probably a lot more who weren't involved) have clearly absorbed these vile notions. It's sickening to see. Unfortunately, if none of them are fired or expelled then it's hard to see them learning anything more from this experience than to be a little more cautious expressing their contempt for America.
You know what I would like to see? Not firings or suspensions. I would like to see ALL the parties involved, PLUS all the faculty and admin staff of this school, required to put on a full-length play depicting TRUE events in Iraq. Let them act out the village children hugging Marine's who just built their new school. Let them show Iraqi bussinessmen bringing goods to market on bridges and roads just built by the Army. Have them depict American-trained Iraqi police high-fiving after having killed a bunch of jihadi's. And let them show a long line of Iraqi's going to vote, each and every one of them spitting with contempt upon the body of a jihadi suicide bomber who tried in vain to stop the Iraqi people from voting.
Require these kids and their teachers to hold this play night after night for a week. Require them all to write an essay about what American freedom means to them, and what liberty and the right to vote means to a man or woman in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Oh well, I can dream, can't I?
Posted by: Chuck Miller on April 1, 2005 11:48 AMI guess this explains where Seattle's knee-jerk protestors come from. They protest as if the means where the end, as if simply protesting were the only objective.
Posted by: DeadManVoting (aka Iguana) on April 1, 2005 12:35 PMANSWERS:
A - While factually correct, it is really wrong in that it demonstrates
an inability by the student to embrace inclusiveness.
Clearly women and children while not combatants, could logically resist
any illegal US Led invasion so could reasonably
be killed in this viscous unprovoked attack. Any student answering A
should be refereed to DSHS for possible home intervention.
B, C, or D. All are correct. And answer D results in an automatic
scholarship to Seattle Central Community College.