DEBATING THE WAR
Response to “Ineffective in D.C.,” Oct. 5
From the title of this article I was under the impression that the D.C. march Sept. 21 had somehow failed. I’d say every single march shows just how many people really care — no matter how many show up or what Congress does in reaction. — jpb
Response to “First Person: I’m Tired of Marching in Circles,” Oct. 5
Americans are too consumed by entertainment and comfort to demand change. We think that this is good living. Why should we give up our minivans and HD TV s and Monday Night Football and once-a-week cooking lessons? The problem is that although millions of Americans disagree with our increasingly dictatorial government, they won’t rock the boat. They’re not willing to take the huge and irreversible step from protest to action. I don’t know if I am. There’s a lot to give up and it’s difficult to do on your own. When will the American condition be bad enough to inspire radical change. — Agree Completely
Responses to “The ABCs of Counterrecruiting,” Oct. 5
I have been an active duty Marine for the past 10 years, and based on my experience, I can say that your article is completely dishonest. I can respect the fact that you are opposed to the war, but I cannot respect the fact that you are using lies and deceit to harm those who are serving their country and protecting your freedom. You should be ashamed of yourselves. —Ricardo M. Mellot
Response to “Unembedded in Iraq: From Bechtel’s Broken Water Pumps to the Battle of Fallujah,” Oct. 5
Dahr Jamail, thank you for all you have done as one of the very few true reporters of the occupation. I have been blindfolded and sidetracked by both sides of the media empires for so long that I refuse to watch any more television misinformation. … There are around 40,000 deaths by gunfire in the U.S. every year. —cyanfrog
GM’s Flimsy Contract
Responses to “Auto Workers Get Shafted,” Oct. 5
I am very concerned about how the worker’s compensation costs (medical costs for injured workers) will drain the Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA) fund. Typically the employer bears the cost of worker’s compensation insurance or is self-insured and pays the costs directly. However, employers are almost never sympathetic to injured workers and tend to dispute or outright deny company liability for the worker’s medical costs, which then are shifted to the usual healthcare provider (insurance company) and the worker. These costs run into retirement more than the company will want to admit, I’m sure. How will the United Auto Workers (UAW) cover the costs of what is rightfully a work- related injury and the liability of the company? Will the worker’s credit rating sink while the UAW also denies payment? Will the VEBA now pay the company’s bills as well? — Kurt Barikmo
I am an employee of General Motors Corporation (GM) and I voted against the contract; it’s unfair and biased. It takes the responsibility out of GM’s hands and puts it in the hands of the union. GM is in trouble because of GM, not the membership. This is a pot they have been stewing for years. — Johney Leake
Unnecessary Abortion Regs
Responses to “Anti-Abortionists See Sonograms as ‘Windows to the Womb’,” Oct. 5
I work at an abortion clinic and we do ultrasounds to determine length of pregnancy. Most of our patients want to look at the ultrasound and they are actually relieved to know it doesn’t look like much of anything; usually just a sac with a jellybean shape in it is how most of them describe it. So they can try to pass this law and maybe one or two girls will change their minds, but most of the patients that come to our clinic have already made their choice. I think they need to stop wasting the tax payers’ dollars on another useless abortion regulation. They could put all that money toward educating people on safe-sex practices and birth-control methods. People are going to have sex; it’s human nature.
Let’s give them the knowledge to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. —Ken
Please print a retraction stating that Dr. Ron Paul does not support using taxpayer money to force ultrasounds on women. He is a constitutionalist and would never support such frivolous spending. While he would encourage doctors to have pregnant patients do this, he would never use taxpayer money to do this. Your article makes it seem as if he is a part of this movement, this is not the case. Dr. Paul wishes for Roe v. Wade to be overturned and for states to have the decision as opposed to the federal government.
He does not support the federal government having anything to do with this decision unless it concerns defining life, which he believes begins at conception. — JEFF
Many libertarian and liber-anarcos are singing Ron Paul’s praises but he gives me pause. Whenever antiracist groups show up at anti-immigration rallies (the New Jersey ones come to mind), openly neo-Nazi groups and the angry white guy crowd are Paul’s biggest supporters… Not to mention that Paul, as Bader points out, is virulently anti-choice. — Anonymous
CORRECTIONS:
The final line of Eleanor J. Bader’s article (“Anti-abortionists See Sonograms As Windows to the Womb”) in the Oct. 5 The Indypendent was cut off. The complete final sentence should have read, “Time will tell whether the law will opt to treat women as capable decision makers or, like Ron Paul and Richard Land, will treat them like children in need of protection, mindless souls who know not what they do .”
A photo from Jena, Louisiana, that appeared on Page 3 of the Oct. 5 The Indypendent should have been credited to Araby Smyth.
Comments
UPDATE--Teachers Threatened with Termination for Anti-war Student Walkout
PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!!!
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***URGENT CALL FOR SOLIDARITY***Â Â Â Â Â Â ***CAMPAIGN UPDATES***Â 11/29/07
***CALL OR EMAIL TUKWILA SCHOOL DISTRICT***
On November 16th, more than 125 students from Foster High School in Tukwila, WA answered a nation-wide call for a student walk out protesting the war and military recruiters in schools. (See student-made video below) In response, the Tukwila School District threatened students with suspension, but their main target was teachers. Disciplinary investigations threaten the firing of SIX teachers and administration placed one of the six, Brett Rogers, on administrative leave. We put out a call for support for the Tukwila Six and students.
⢠Hundreds of emails and phone calls of solidarity have had a MAJOR IMPACT on the Tukwila School Board.
⢠At a Tukwila School Board meeting Tuesday the 25th, students and community members jam-packed the room, passionately demanding NO repression of students and DROP ALL DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDING AGAINST THE TUKWILA SIX! (See below for video clip)
⢠Media coverage has brought a spotlight to Principal Ilgenfritzâs REPRESSIVE instincts to the DEMOCRATIC EXPRESSION of students and against ACADEMIC FREEDOM of teachers.
Because of PUBLIC PRESSURE, the solidarity campaign has won a partial victoryâpopular teacher Brett Rogers was been TEMPORARILY REINSTATED Tuesday. However, the disciplinary investigations continue and some of the teachers are still in their probationary period, so pressure must be put on the school district to retain the Tukwila Six this year AND next. (See Seattle Times article below)
Also Wednesday, when students tried to meet at the Foster commons after school to discuss the crisis, the principal brought in eight police to break up and disperse the meeting. Student posters were torn down by the principal, and students were told that they are not allowed to hang up posters. Teachers have been told that they may not discuss the crisis with colleagues or students. One girl talking about teacher Brett Rogerâs situation was loudly threatened by Principal Ilgenfritz with suspension. All these incidents are blatant violations of students' and teachers' constitutional rights to free speach, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly!
The phone calls and emails must continue- this is not over. These teachers' livelihoods are still at stake and the students' rights are clearly under attack.
(More detailed information at bottom of email)
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The Tukwila Teachers and Students Solidarity Committee URGENTLY requests that you again FLOOD the administration with phone calls and emails with the following DEMANDS
1. Fire NO teachers!
2. Drop all disciplinary investigations against teachers NOW!
3. KEEP ALL THE TEACHERS THE REST OF THIS YEAR AND NEXT YEAR!
4. When politicians lie to us and continue their oil-driven war against the people's will, student walkouts and other forms of civil disobedience are justified and necessary. SUPPORT THE STUDENTS' INITIATE. No discipline for any students who walked out and took a stand against this war!
5. End attacks on Foster Student Rights to Free Speech and Assembly.
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Please call or email NOW!
Foster HS Principal George Ilgenfritz: Â 1 (206) 901-7905
ilgenfritzg@tukwila.wednet.edu
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And Interim Superintendent Ethelda Burke:Â 1 (206) 901-8000, (206) 901-8006,
Â
burkee@tukwila.wednet.eduÂ
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Please CC these Tukwila School Board:
Â
mfertakis@comcast.net
pmaltsberger2000@yahoo.com
jasminkakujundzic@yahoo.com
wahlsea@yahoo.com
Â
Please send a copy of protest emails to us at
Â
tukwila.teachers.solidarity@hotmail.com so we can count how many protest emails have been sent in.
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If they refuse to answer your call,
phone Foster HS Assistant Principal Daryl Wright 1 (206) 901-7902 and Foster HS Office Manager Darlene Aguiluz 1 (206) 901-7915.
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VIDEOS:
Student-made Walkout Film:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGSDzDF7xoY
Footage on Foster Walkout, Tukwila Six and After School Board meeting:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrhRplEvW4w
KIRO 7:
http://www.kirotv.com/education/14714796/detail.html (click where it says "video")
NorthWest Cable News:
http://www.nwcn.com/video/news-index.html?nvid=196453
NEWS ARTICLES:
Seattle Times Article: "Protesting teacher back at Tukwila school"Â Â Thursday, November 29th
seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2004041566_tukwila29m.html
Seattle Post-Intelligence Nov. 16th Walkout Article:
seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/340003_peace17.html
FOUR articles on walkouts at:
socialistalternative.org
Further background information:
On Friday, November 16th, more than a 1,000 students in Washington State participated in a nation-wide student walkout to protest the war and military recruiters in schools. This included around 125+ students at Foster High School , just south of Seattle . Foster is part of the Tukwila School District , of which 71% of the student body is low-income and eligible for the free and reduced-cost school meals. Since the beginning of the Iraq War, the U.S. military has been assigning ever greater numbers of recruiters to lure young people into signing up for this bloody, costly and illegal quagmire in Iraq, especially in marginalized schools like Foster High School.
·      With a âNo Child Left Behindâ Act of 2001 provision forcing principals to give up the private contact information of young people to military recruiters, students and teachers have the natural right to protest.
·      With a bloody and illegal war, where the soldiers that are killed and maimed are disproportionately minorities and victims of the âpoverty draft,â students and teachers of Tukwila have the natural right to protest.Â
·      With more than $500 billion dollars and the lives of more than a million Iraqis having been utterly wasted on a failed war, with schools in marginalized areas falling apart, we should all be protesting with the slogan: âMoney for SchoolsâNot For War!"
·      With 75% of the American people polling against the war according to the latest Washington Post poll, and a Democratic Congress still making excuses for why it canât cut off funding to bring the troops home, we must support the young people who speak out against their future being bombed away.Â
·      And we MUST support their teachers whose only misconduct was making their lesson plans truly relevant to the lives of their students
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For further background on walkouts organized by Youth Against War and Racism, go to:
Â
www.YAWR.org
Â
To contact the Tukwila Teachers & Students Solidarity Committee
Â
Email: tukwilateachers@yahoo.com
Â
Call: 253-573-9252
Â
(Please leave a brief message and we will respond as soon as we are able).
Â
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 MORE BACKGROUND INFO:
Foster is part of the Tukwila School District , of which 71% of the student body is low-income and eligible for the free and reduced-cost school meals. Since the beginning of the Iraq War, the U.S. military has been assigning ever greater numbers of recruiters to lure young people into signing up for this bloody, costly and illegal quagmire in Iraq, especially in marginalized schools like Foster High School.
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The memo from Interim Superintendent to at least 6 teachers essentially says:
1. In the next couple days, we will summon you to a meeting because we are âinvestigating reports of possible misconduct relating to you in connection with the student walk-out.â There could be disciplinary consequences pending completion of this investigation.
1. You are not to discuss âthis matter with any District students or staff,â or else you could be terminated.
1. You have the right to have a union representative present with you during the investigative interview in case you feel your rights might be violated.
The administration is clearly trying to isolate the teachers and students from one another to try to divide them and weaken them. They are trying to use the tactic of divide and rule. They are also blatantly violating the teachersâ right to free speech.
The teachers have been careful to abide by the Interim Superintendentâs directive not to talk with any District students or staff about these matters. But nothing in the Superintendentâs letter said teachers could not talk with their union representatives or community supporters. In fact, the letter explicitly says they could talk with the union.
Some teachers who received letters were simply on their lesson planning hour and therefore were not scheduled to teach class when the student walkout happened. These teachers went outside just to see what was going on when the students walked out, but they did not walk out or promote the walkout. So the school has no evidence against some teachers who received the threatening letters.
It appears the administration is targeting these teachers in a political with-hunt because they have spoken their minds in the past over other issues. For example, two of these teachers were banned in the past from sending out school-wide emails because they spoke their minds in school-wide emails that the administrators did not like.
Iraq Veteran
The husband of one of the teachers who received the threatening letters is an Iraq veteran. He went to Foster High School on November 16th and spoke to the students from first-hand experience about the truth of the Iraq War that the government and corporate media are actively hiding from the American people, and he walked out with the students.
As the Iraq veteran left the building, he was confronted by a security guard who identified himself as a police officer/veteran/federal marshall who said: âDon't even start with me, I'm a veteran.â
The school administration is disciplining a teacher whose husband is a veteran whose life was put at serious risk in Iraq and who has now turned against the war. This is very disrespectful to the veteran, his family, and the working-class students who are being forced to shoulder the burdens of this war. The school administrators are more concerned with trying to having power over teachers and students than letting the communities who have been hit the hardest by the war speak out against the war and the predatory military recruiters in their schools. Thisâafter the American people voted the Democrats into Congress to end the war, but the Democrats are still making excuses about why they cannot cut off funds for the war and direct those funds toward education and other desperately needed social services. When the leaders of our country will not end this unjust war, then it becomes up to ordinary workers, parents, students, and soldiers to end the war.
The attendance secretary at the school also refused to excuse the absences of students who had permission slips signed by their parents to miss school, which is a flagrant violation of parent and student rights.Â
Principal George Ilgenfritz also told one student that she didnât know anything about war. (Ironically, the student is from an immigrant Somali family who has family in the war-torn country of Somalia .)
On the Tukwila School District âs website, the following message has been posted by Interim Superintendent Ethelda Burke: âWe believe in the historic mission of public education within our democracyâ¦Â Our schools are expected to encourage and prepare students to be productive citizens.  We believe the challenge is to transform every child â to give every student a chance to become an autonomous, thinking person and a self-governing citizen. We are all here to work together to provide the best education for the most prized commodity of our fine city â the students of the Tukwila School District .â
Yet when the students participate in an act of peaceful civil disobedience in the best traditions of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement who challenged unjust segregation laws, now the Superintendent is hypocritically trying to discourage students from being âself-governing citizensâ and standing up for what is right.Â
We need to match the determination of these courageous teachers, students and the Iraq veteran with all the support we can! Please take a few minutes now to call and email the Principal and Superintendent at the numbers and emails at the top of this email!
YouTube video of Foster High School student rally for peace: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOuLz3kKExIÂ
Report on Washington State Nov. 16th student walkouts against the war:Â http://yawr.org/nov16/seattle.html
Articles on Youth Against War and Racism student victories against military recruiters in schools:
http://yawr.org/victory/victory.htm#tacoma
http://yawr.org/victory/victory.htm#kennedy
http://www.socialistalternative.org/news/article13.php?id=611Â
Please forward this email widely to supportive organizations and individuals who might be able to help!
SAMPLE PROTEST LETTER:
Dear Principal Ilgenfritz,
I am writing to demand that the Tukwila School District support the initiative and moral fortitude
of students who took a stand against the effects of the Iraq war on their communities. The student
march and rally on November 16th were student-generated and entirely peaceful.
With a âNo Child Left Behindâ Act of 2001 provision forcing principals to give up the private
contact information of young people to military recruiters, students and teachers have the
natural right to protest.
With a bloody and illegal war, where the soldiers that are killed and maimed are
disproportionately minorities and victims of the âpoverty draft,â students and
teachers of Tukwila have the natural right to protest.
With more than $500 billion dollars and the lives of more than a million Iraqis
having been utterly wasted on a failed war, with schools in marginalized areas
falling apart, we should all be protesting with the slogan: âMoney for SchoolsâNot For War!"
With 75% of the American people polling against the war according to the latest Washington
Post poll, and a Democratic Congress still making excuses for why it canât cut off funding
to bring the troops home, we must support the young people who speak out against their
future being bombed away.
These teachers only misconduct was making their lesson plans truly relevant to the lives
of their students.
On the Tukwila School Districtâs website, the Interim Superintedent posted the following message:
âWe believe in the historic mission of public education within our democracyâ¦Â Our schools are
expected to encourage and prepare students to be productive citizens.  We believe the challenge
is to transform every child â to give every student a chance to become an autonomous, thinking
person and a self-governing citizen. We are all here to work together to provide the best
education for the most prized commodity of our fine city â the students of the Tukwila School
District .â
Yet when the students participate in an act of peaceful civil disobedience in the best traditions
of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement who challenged unjust segregation
laws, now the school district is hypocritically trying to discourage students from being
âself-governing citizensâ and standing up for what is right?
You should immediately:
      1. Reinstate the teacher Brett Rogers who has been put on administrative leave!
      2. Drop the disciplinary hearings against all six teachers who face investigations!
      3. Take no disciplinary action against students who participated in the walkout!
Please write me back saying that upon further investigation you realize that there is no
need for disciplinary action against these students or teachers.
Sincerely,
Ramy Khalil
Youth Against War and Racism
Member of the Amalgamated Transit Union , Local 587
Committee for a Workers' International
(206)293-8389
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