How About “Teacher Control”

I alluded to this point briefly in this week’s radio spot, and I think it imperative that a discussion be initiated on another reason for the Virginia Tech shooting that will be avoided by mainstream media analysis: the need for Teacher Control.

Yes, it was a gun that enabled the student Cho Seung-Hui to carry out the ultimate in angst, but what made him so angry, as he wrote, about America that he chose to go out in a blaze of glory and take innocent people with him?

A little background here….

I work with young people. I teach kids middle through high school. I have two teenagers of my own. After watching some of the television shows they watch, watching them play the video games they play, and listening to what’s on their minds at present, they don’t seem to have the hatred in their hearts of America that would set them off.

Remember, we’re talking about teenagers who are more interested in their cell phone text messages, their clothes, what movie to see this weekend, when they will be old enough to drive, does that person like them, is there a free soda close by, can they get the mp3 of that song tonight, and will they be able to intercept the report card before their parents get home and check the mailbox?

Normal teenagers think about normal things. I must admit, I didn’t know much about current events while I was in school. I probably took the wrong classes, but it would seem that some of today’s teachers (who are liberal) have no problem imposing their personal political views on students. Students who lack the proper life experience to challenge them. Students who believe that because that view is coming from a teacher (who can affect their grade), the information is true.

There is also a message being sent that those who disagree with that teacher’s views are not worthy of even being heard. And while those same institutions praise free speech, teachers encourage their students to shout down visiting speakers, break the law by engaging in peaceful protests. If free speech is so sacrosanct, can you imagine how evil a person must be if their argument should not even be heard?

Why did the Virginia Tech shooter write about his being pissed off at rich kids? Who often uses the phrase “evil rich”? Why did the Virginia Tech think that America was a diseased society? Ever listen to Howard Zinn and or Noam Chomsky? Did this young man come to college as the typical know-little-about-the-world freshman, and within three and a half years, become a menace to society because he was taught that society was no damn good?

Where do they get these feelings of dread and later rage? Let’s go back, shall we? Remember Jay Bennish at Overland High School in Colorado and what he was teaching his World Geography students?

“Who is probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth? The United States of America!”

I’m not forgetting that I’m preaching to the choir, but what do you think a high school student would get out of those two sentences. Without telling those high school students that the same United States comes to the aid of any nation that falls victim to a catastrophe, natural or manmade, America sure comes off looking bad.

The United States, despite the slanders, is the nation more people want to move to, and the fewest people (outside of indoctrinated college students) want to leave. The United States creates the technology that benefits more people worldwide than any other nation. We feed the world with food and knowledge. Do teachers tell their students that?

Sure. There are some, but clearly not a majority.

“Capitalism: If you don’t understand the economic system of capitalism, you don’t understand the world in which we live. Ok. Economic system in which all or most of the means of production, etc., are owned privately and operated in a somewhat competitive environment for the purpose of producing PROFIT! Of course, you can shorten these definitions down. Make sure you get the gist of it. Do you see how when, you know, when you’re looking at this definition, where does it say anything about capitalism is an economic system that will provide everyone in the world with the basic needs that they need? Is that a part of this system? Do you see how this economic system is at odds with humanity? At odds with caring and compassion? It’s at odds with human rights.”

“Anytime you have a system that is designed to procure profit, when profit is the bottom motive — money — that means money is going to become more important potentially than what? Safety, human lives, etc.”

I can understand why teachers like Bennish would not understand the concept of capitalism. Many teachers are paid whether they do their job efficiently or not. Many of their institutions are government controlled, so a bottom line never has to be met. A school may lack the money to pay for books, but teachers will go on strike for more pay and their students suffer. Oh well….

But in the end, kids in the evil United States do get to go to college, unlike some Third World nations where a woman going to school would be considered an outrage. But if they are told day in and day out that America is a greedy nation that spits on fellow human beings because we are inherently racist as well.

Hell, I’m beginning to find America disgusting myself.

“Who has the most weapons of mass destruction in the world? The United States. Who’s continuing to develop new weapons of mass destruction as we speak? The United States.

“So, why does Mr. Bush think that other countries that are democracies won’t wanna be like us? Why does he think they’ll just wanna be at peace with each other? What makes him think that when the Palestinians get their own state that they won’t wanna preemptively invade Israel to eliminate a potential threat to their security just like we supposedly did in Iraq? Do you see the dangerous precedent that we have set by illegally invading another country and violating their sovereignty in the name of protecting us against a potential future — sorry — attack?”

Ah, yes. The Palestinians. Many professor types have taken sides on that conflict between Palestine and Israel. I’ve personally heard college teachers use some of the most anti-Semitic verbiage in conjunction with this topic, and I could argue the other side. Imagine what such a one-sided presentation could evoke…?

“Israeli soldiers this evening killed an American peace activist from the Grassroots International Protection for Palestinians (GIPP)/ISM in the Al-Salam neighbourhood of Rafah city, in the south of the Gaza Strip.

“The girl, Rachel Corrie, 23 years old from the state of Washington, was killed while she was trying to prevent Israeli army bulldozers from destroying a Palestinian home. Other foreigners who were with her said the driver of the bulldozer was aware that Rachel was there, and continued to destroy the house. Initially he dropped sand and other heavy debris on her, then the bulldozer pushed her to the ground where it proceeded to drive over her, fracturing both of her arms, legs and skull. She was transferred to hospital, where she later died.”
- Palestine Monitor, March 16, 2003

Now I don’t know much about Rachel Corrie, and her death was horrific. But did she go to college knowing that she would personally take sides in a conflict half a world away? Or was she a typical teenaged girl who was pumped full of anti-American, anti-Israel propaganda in a setting where her academic future was held hostage?

Did that presentation place her between an oncoming bulldozer and a suspected terrorist hideout?

Bennish in talking to his class continued talking about President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 2006….

“He started off his speech talking about how America should be the country that dominates the world. That we have been blessed essentially by God to have the most civilized, most advanced, best system and that it is our duty as Americans to use the military to go out into the world and make the whole world like us.

“Sounds a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler use to say. We’re the only ones who are right. Everyone else is backwards. And it’s our job to conquer the world and make sure they live just like we want them to. Now, I’m not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same. Obviously, they are not. Ok. But there are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use. Very, very “ethnocentric.” We’re right. You’re all wrong.”

Did President Bush actually say that America should be the country that dominates the world? If he did, every one of our enemies would be using that line to justify attacking us. The President never said that, yet young high school students who were probably watching “The Real World” during the Address wouldn’t know that.

Imagine this kind of indoctrination on a national scale in high schools, and even more so in college. Is it any wonder we haven’t had more shootings? We hear that our kid’s generation is depressed. Listen to the music they listen to. All these millionaire musicians singing about how fucked up the world is.

“After the Israel-Zionist movement conducted what? Terrorist acts. They assassinated the British prime minister in Palestine. They blew up buildings. They stole military equipment. Assassinated hundreds of people. Car bombings, you name it. That’s how the modern state of Israel was made. Was through violence and terrorism. Eventually we did allow them to have the land. Why? Not because we really care, but because we wanted a strategic ally. We saw a way to us to get a hook into the Middle East.”

Bennish explained what Rachel Corrie must have been taught….

“If you were Palestinians, who are the real terrorists? The Israelis, who fire missiles that they purchased from the United States government into Palestinian neighborhoods and refugees and maybe kill a terrorist, but also kill innocent women and children. And when you shoot a missile into Pakistan to quote-unquote kill a known terrorist, and we just killed 75 people that have nothing to do with al Qaeda, as far as they’re concerned, we’re the terrorists. We’ve attacked them on their soil with the intention of killing their innocent people.”

The student who recorded the “lecture” commented, “But we did not have the intention of killing innocent people. We had the intention of killing an al Qaeda terrorist.”

Bennish replied, “Do you know that?”

Maybe after years of being taught that this was a messed up place, maybe that’s why America made Hui’s shit list. The problem is, after the coming weeks of student psychiatric privacy, gun control, campus security, rich and poor, and race debates, one aspect of this story will never be touched.

The Concerned Duke Faculty made all men out to be potential rapists of helpless black women. Who knows what was taught to Virginia Tech English major. But one thing’s for sure….

So instead of the usual focusing on the gun, let’s try and see why the young man who bought it saw fit to use it on friends, strangers, fellow students, and lastly himself. Was he just nuts or did years of pounding how evil all around him was, give him a to hell with all of it attitude?

“I didn’t have to do this. I could have left. I could have fled. But no, I will no longer run. It’s not for me. For my children, for my brothers and sisters that you fucked, I did it for them. When the time came, I did it. I had to.”
- Cho says on one of the videos sent to NBC

Cho Seung-Hui’s “manifesto” sounds similar to a reading during a performance art piece.

Liberal indoctrination may be one of the culprits in Blacksburg, but we’ll never know for sure as it’ll never reach the media radar. I fear we may see more tragedies as long as the gutless haters, of all that is America, are teaching our kids.