As DC Media Girl said, "Something has gone terribly wrong." Evidently, instead of raising our children to think independently, we're indoctrinating a new generation of faithful lapdogs. After the identity of Deep Throat came out, one high school teacher in Baltimore used the incident as the basis of her honor's philosophy class. The responses show the degree to which students have succumbed to the current zeitgeist. Only three students defended Felt's decision to guide reporter Bob Woodward, and the public's right to know the behavior of its elected leaders."
At least there's a small glimmer of hope. One student asked, "How are people supposed to elect the president if they don't know if he's doing the right thing or the wrong thing?" (The billion-dollar question. We should all be chanting this as we throw rocks at the White House.) Unfortunately, most of the 12 juniors in the class said it was unethical for Felt to talk to Woodward! One student said Felt's job was "to go to his superiors," while another expressed the opinion that the public "should only know so much." (I guess this compassionate student was concerned lest we find the news coming out of Washington overly upsetting.) Our Republican "leaders" can at least take heart from one aspect of this story: No child is being left behind in the steady march to totalitarianism.
4 comments:
Right on, Karlo -- this kind of mindless obedience to authority, respecting that which has not earned any respect, is the greatest danger to our democracy. Seems like we are raising a generation to be good soldiers for the Imperial March... Lawd, how things have changed in three decades, eh? What's wrong with the kids -- are they just so scared and stressed, that they're willing to kowtow to highly-placed bullies?
On the other hand, the military recruiters are missing their targets by huge amounts lately, especially the Army and Marines, so that says there is less willing-cannon-fodder these days, despite the difficulty of getting a decent job. I suppose this is because the patriotism-inducing shock of 9/11 has faded and the reality of what an illegal immoral murderous morass the invasion of Iraq has become has been sinking in... But then, some reports say that the new reluctance to join up is due to the (baby-boomer) parents of current youth -- as excellently depicted in recent Doonesbury cartoons...
I recently heard that the Army had upped its bonus to 40 grand! And they're still having a hard time meeting quotas!
40 grand ain't so much for having your legs blown off in a jeep that Rumsfeld didn't get around to having armored yet...
20 grand a leg. Now that's a grim thought.
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