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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=tanstl@aol.com href="mailto:tanstl@aol.com">David Sladky</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=undisclosed-recipients:
href="mailto:undisclosed-recipients:">undisclosed-recipients:</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Monday, June 28, 2010 6:59 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> When Awareness Is a Crime, and Other Lessons From Morton
West </DIV></DIV>
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<H2> </H2>
<H3><A name=4274397115987444420></A>When Awareness Is a Crime, and Other Lessons
From Morton West </H3>
<DIV>[An Update about the latest developments added at the conclusion. It may be
a good sign that the school board has postponed the vote on possible expulsion
for these students. They may be feeling the pressure -- so if you haven't yet,
<A href="http://www.petitiononline.com/mortonw/" target=_blank>sign the
petition.</A> Let's increase the pressure still more.]<BR><BR>Reading several
news accounts of the completely unjustified punishments that may be imposed on
the high school students <A
href="http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/11/you-may-as-well-break-goddamned-rules.html"
target=_blank>who protested the ongoing Iraq occupation</A> makes it quickly
apparent that this awful episode encapsulates several of the key lessons that
our culture delivers to all of us every day. It is hardly coincidental that
these lessons should be combined in this manner, and the lessons capture the
immense damage done to justice, a genuine respect for human life, and the hope
for a civilized society. The lessons do not exist independently: they all serve
to reinforce each other. They are interdependent in numerous ways; together,
they cause destruction in countless forms.<BR><BR>As we consider these lessons,
I want you to keep in mind this statement from one of the students: </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE><B>"All we were trying to do was promote peace and recognize that
people are dying every day," said sophomore Adam Szwarek. "They said it was
insubordination."</B></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV>Remember the critical relevant context. The United States is well into the
fifth year of an illegal and criminal occupation of Iraq. That country never
threatened us, and every honest person now recognizes that our political leaders
<A href="http://www.fff.org/comment/com0610h.asp" target=_blank>lied their way
into this momentous crime.</A> In the same way, the Democrats who now control
Congress pathetically wail that they want to end the slaughter, they really,
<I>really</I> do -- but they don't have enough votes. This too is <A
href="http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/10/break-goddamned-rules.html"
target=_blank>a vicious and murderous lie.</A> The invasion and occupation of
Iraq have unleashed a genocide that has taken <A
href="http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/09/lets-make-it-about-you-can-we-stop.html"
target=_blank>well over one million lives.</A> With the usual one or two
exceptions, no one in the ruling class sees this unforgivable crime as one that
must be immediately stopped.<BR><BR>As I regularly note, the truth of what the
United States has done is very rarely recognized. Our political leaders never
acknowledge the full truth; some of them, like Hillary Clinton (see the
conclusion <A
href="http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/09/lets-make-it-about-you-can-we-stop.html"
target=_blank>of this essay</A>), avail themselves of one of the most
sickeningly inhumane "excuses" it is possible to imagine: the Iraq catastrophe
is <I>the Iraqis' fault.</I> There is no Hell hot enough for this nauseating
excuse for a human being.<BR><BR>In the second part of my "Final Descent"
series, <A
href="http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/10/nation-on-edge-of-final-descent-ii.html"
target=_blank>I wrote</A>: </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE><B>For this is where we are in the United States, nearing the end
of the Year of Our Lord 2007: the truth is not merely unpleasant, an uninvited
guest who makes conversation difficult and awkward. Truth is <I>the enemy;</I>
truth is to be destroyed. To attempt to speak the truth on any subject of
importance requires a deep reserve of determination, for to speak the truth
requires that one first sweep away an infinite number of rationalizations,
false alternatives, and numerous other failures of logic and the most
rudimentary forms of thought -- as well as the endless lies. On that single
occasion in a thousand or a million when a person overcomes these barriers and
speaks the truth, he or she discovers an additional, terrible truth: almost no
one wants to hear it. This is how we live today: lies are the staple of our
diet. Without them, we would die, certainly in psychological
terms.</B></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV>Faced with this impenetrable wall of resistance to truths that ought to be
the primary, if not the sole, topic of discussion in our national life, Adam
Szwarek and the other students felt an urgent need to speak the truth that we
most desperately need to hear at this terrible moment in history: <B>"All we
were trying to do was promote peace and recognize that people are dying every
day..."</B><BR><BR>I submit that this is one of the noblest statements uttered
in the United States in the last several years, not only because of the supreme
importance of its content, but because of the particular values and the kind of
soul that inform it. Szwarek's concerns are ones that should be those of every
national leader of minimal decency -- but they are not. Szwarek knows "that
people are dying every day" -- which is the terrifying fact that our politicians
and media try to prevent from ever reaching our consciousness. Szwarek was
determined to make people aware of the horrors that take place every hour of
every day, in the hope that those who have the power to do so would finally stop
them.<BR><BR>People like Szwarek are rare in any age; today, there are very few
people in our national life who demonstrate this degree of commitment to peace
and the sanctity of human life. Szwarek's awareness of these issues and his
willingness <I>to do something about them</I> should be honored and celebrated.
Instead, the authorities seek to punish him severely, thus perhaps destroying
his educational future, and therefore his hopes for a career, and thus his
life.<BR><BR>Here are some of the lessons from Morton West, and from our culture
more generally:<BR><BR><B>1. The idea of impartial and "blind" justice is a
lie.</B><BR><BR>From the <A
href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northwest/chi-mortonprotest_07_bothnov07,1,3791251.story?ctrack=1&cset=true"
target=_blank><I>Chicago Tribune</I></A>: </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Parents and students at Morton West High School are accusing
school officials of showing favoritism in dishing out disciplinary measures
after an Iraq war protest at the school last week.<BR><BR><B>About 20 parents
and their children gathered outside the Berwyn school Tuesday, saying that
students who play varsity athletics or have higher grade-point averages were
given less stringent penalties for the demonstration last
Thursday.<BR><BR>"The deans were going to the kids who they knew were
straight-A students and trying to coax them out by saying, 'You're going to
get expelled,'" sophomore Adam Szwarek said.<BR><BR>Students also said
officials told them that if they moved the lunch-hour protest, which began in
the cafeteria, to another area, they would face only Saturday
detention.<BR><BR>In a statement posted Friday on the District 201 Web site,
Supt. Ben Nowakowski said that school officials told students they would be
spared disciplinary action if they moved the protest but that some students
locked arms and refused to move.<BR><BR>Later that day, school officials cited
demonstrators with "gross disobedience and mob activity," non-criminal
offenses but enough to be considered for suspensions and expulsion, parents
and students said.<BR><BR>They said that some students with lower grades were
given 10-day suspensions and face expulsion, while students favored by
officials were given only five-day suspensions and do not face expulsion. The
suspensions began the day after the protest, parents at Tuesday's rally
said.<BR><BR>...<BR><BR>Andy Maniotis, whose daughter was given a 5-day
suspension and does not face expulsion, said she was given a more lenient
penalty because she is an honor student with a 4.5 GPA, but he said school
officials threatened her for participating in the protest.<BR><BR>"They told
her numerous times over the protest line that they're not going to help her
get into college," Maniotis said.<BR><BR>His wife, Rita, thinks her daughter
should have received the same disciplinary measure as other students who
participated in the protest. "She should be facing expulsion too," she said.
"She didn't do anything they didn't do."</B></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV>The message is unequivocal: if you conform to those particular values and
behaviors that adults in power favor, you will be treated much more leniently
than if you do not. Certainly, good grades are a worthy goal -- but not when
they are made a precondition of basic fairness. The idea of justice presupposes
that identical wrongdoing merits identical punishment. This school
administration has thrown that idea out.<BR><BR>This is a narrower instance of a
more general point <A
href="http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/10/its-called-ruling-class-because-it.html"
target=_blank>I made recently</A>: </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE><B>The law is not some Platonic Form plucked from the skies by the
Pure in Heart. Laws are written by men, men who have particular interests,
particular constituencies, particular donors, and particular friends. ... Laws
are the particular means by which the state implements and executes its vast
powers. When an increasingly authoritarian state passes a certain critical
point in its development, the law is no longer the protector of individual
rights and individual liberty. The law becomes the weapon of the state itself
-- to protect, not <I>you,</I> but the state from threats to its own powers.
We passed that critical point some decades ago. The law is the means by which
the state corrals its subjects, keeps them under control, and forbids them
from acting in ways that the overlords might perceive as threatening. In
brief, today, in these glorious United States, the law is not your
friend.</B></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><B>2. Adults in positions of authority constantly talk about their concern
for children and their futures, just as politicians always assure us that they
only act "for our own good" -- which is also what the U.S. tells the Iraqis, as
it destroys their country and murders more than one million of them. All of this
is also a lie.</B><BR><BR>From the <I>Chicago Tribune</I> story: </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE><B>Pam Winstead, whose son was given a 10-day suspension and faces
expulsion for participating in the war protest, said Nowakowski
overreacted.<BR><BR>"Maybe he acted emotionally and he'd never dealt with this
before," she said. "We just want him to back off. These are our kids, and he's
willing to throw their future away."<BR><BR>...<BR><BR>Matt Heffernan, a
junior who organized the protest, said the students locked arms while in the
cafeteria because they feared being arrested for refusing to stand up. As they
sang songs and chanted, one student threw a pencil case at them, he
said.<BR><BR>Heffernan, who faces expulsion, said he felt misled by school
officials who promised a lesser punishment.<BR><BR>More than two dozen
students were suspended, and some of them are facing expulsion.<BR><BR>"We
thought we were taking the deal and moved to the spot they designated for us,"
he said. "We knew there'd be some disciplinary actions taken upon us, but we
never thought it would go to expulsion."<BR><BR>Heffernan said he was
concerned about the impact that the disciplinary measures might have on his
college applications.<BR><BR>"I think this will greatly threaten my chances,"
he said.</B></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV>Try to recapture your perspective as a teenager in high school, when even
the most minor slight or setback could seem to be the end of the world. These
students, who were opposing a criminal, monstrous war, are now being threatened
with grievous injury to their educational futures, and thus to their future
lives. The administration is prepared to throw their lives away in significant
part -- and all for a demonstration that was not only entirely peaceful and
nonviolent, but fully justified and <I>necessary.</I><BR><BR><B>3. Betraying
your friends and allies to save yourself is sometimes the smartest way out of
trouble. Even if it may not be "good," it is sometimes
necessary.</B><BR><BR>From <A
href="http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/07/18458652.php"
target=_blank>another account</A>: </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE><B>As national outrage mounts against the threatened expulsion of
dozens of high school students in the wake of a antiwar sit-in at Morton West
High School in Berwyn, Illinois, parents who have attended private meetings
with their suspended students and school officials report that their students
were offered reduced punishments only if they signed a confession that singled
out a student as the organizer of the protest.<BR><BR>"How can I drop the
suspension if you don't single out who was the ring leader of
this<BR>disruption," was what one school official told Joshua Rodriguez, a
senior who is facing expulsion along with his brother David, a
freshman.<BR><BR>Danny Rodriguez, the boys' father did not receive an answer
when he asked if this confession could be used against his son, so he did not
allow his son to sign it. David and Joshua Rodriguez have been suspended for
10 days and were served with expulsion papers.<BR><BR>Other parents report the
same scenario in their suspension appeals meeting with school
authorities.</B></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV>The powerful will always seek to turn dissenters and those who oppose their
power against each other. Snitching is thus turned into a virtue. Surely I do
not need to remind readers of the horrifying uses of this tactic throughout our
own history, to say nothing of its uses in history more generally. In other
circumstances, betrayals of this kind get people <I>killed.</I> Apparently, the
school administration thinks it valuable to impart this lesson early.<BR><BR>I
find it perfectly believable that a "school official" would have used the phrase
"ring leader." In this manner, students trying to "promote peace" and stop a
genocidal war are turned into gang members. So still another lesson is being
provided: dissenters are not only punished and set against each other -- they
also must be demonized. This, too, is a longstanding American tradition, one
that gets a great deal of play in the completely phony "War on Terror," and not
just with regard to enemies abroad (real or imagined). Everyone who opposes our
government's foreign policy is all too familiar with the charges of "hating
America" and all the other accusations of near-treason, or even treason
itself.<BR><BR><B>4. In their efforts to coerce your conformity to acceptable
modes of behavior and to shut you up, authorities will lie to you about anything
and everything.</B><BR><BR>From the story referenced above: </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE><B>[A]ll Morton West households received a letter from school
principal, John Lucas. The letter states that "On Thursday there was a minor
protest at Morton West that involved about thirty-five (35) students. This
disturbance was non-violent and was a protest against the War in
Iraq."<BR><BR>The letter goes on to thank teachers, staff and administrators
"for maintaining order" and thanks "the majority of students for not joining
in the school disruption and for realizing that their education is more
important than disrupting school."<BR><BR>The letter still maintains that
there are only 25 students were the core of the demonstrators and states, that
these students refused to leave the cafeteria when told and "as a result of
this gross disobedience and disruption of the school day, many of these
students have been suspended for a number of school days and many of these
have been referred for disciplinary action that will include expulsion from
school."<BR><BR>Parents of the demonstrators are wondering why, if it was just
a minor protest and that "Throughout the day classes were held, lunches were
served, and order was maintained," why are the students being
expelled?</B></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV>Also remember the accounts above -- and how the students thought they had a
"deal" which included much lesser punishments. They took the deal, and then the
administration indicated they might still receive the most severe punishment of
all, expulsion.<BR><BR>A story in the <A
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/us/07protest.html" target=_blank><I>New
York Times</I> provides further details</A>: </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE><B>[S]everal students said the protesters, whose numbers had
dwindled to about 25, obeyed the administration’s request to move from a
high-traffic area in the cafeteria to a less-crowded hall near the principal’s
office. There, they intertwined arms, sang along to an acoustic guitar and
talked about how the war was affecting the world, said Matt Heffernan, a
junior who took part.<BR><BR>"We agreed to move to another side of the
building," Matt said. "We also made a deal that if we moved there, there would
be no disciplinary action taken upon us."<BR><BR>Matt said the group had been
told that the most severe punishment would be a Saturday detention for cutting
class that day.<BR><BR>Police officers were on the scene, and Berwyn’s police
chief, William Kushner, said no arrests were made. "It was all very peaceful
and orderly," he said.<BR><BR>But at the end of the school day, Matt said, Dr.
Nowakowski gave the remaining protesters disciplinary notices stating that
they had engaged in mob action, that they were suspended for 10 days and that
they faced expulsion.<BR><BR>"I was shocked," said Matt, 16. "We had the
sit-in. So I had mixed feelings of confidence — of a job well done — and
fright, because my whole educational future is at risk."<BR><BR>School
officials also sent a letter to the parents of all the school’s students
calling the protest "gross disobedience" and reminding parents that any
disruption to the educational process could lead to expulsion.<BR><BR>On
Tuesday, a group of parents went to the school to demand that their children
be allowed return to classes. At most, the parents said, the protesters’
behavior amounted to loitering, which should be punishable by detention or a
meeting with a guidance counselor.<BR><BR>The parents have also asked that the
district provide the students with some way to express themselves about issues
like the war.<BR><BR>"Who’s the next group to go off to war?" said Adam
Szwarek, whose 16-year-old son, Adam, faces expulsion. "These kids. The kids
do a peaceful sit-in and they’re threatened with expulsion, yet the military’s
running around the school trying to recruit."</B></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV>That last detail further confirms one of my arguments above: the school is
more than willing to encourage our culture's values, through the presence of
military recruiters, for example. The school thus provides still more lives and
bodies to be ground up and destroyed in this and future wars of aggression. The
same school will not tolerate a peaceful demonstration opposed to those same
policies.<BR><BR>I assume I do not need to comment on the terrible irony that
these students -- who have demonstrated a deep and thoughtful concern for peace
and the value of human life -- are forced to beg to be <I>let into school</I>,
at a time when numerous public voices decry the "dumbing down" of our youth and
their notable lack of enthusiasm for and interest in education and
learning.<BR><BR>All of this brings us to the most general and the most deeply
damaging lesson from Morton West. This lesson is one that almost all of us are
taught in varying degrees from our very earliest years:<BR><BR><B>5. The extent
of your awareness of the world around you, and the extent of your sensitivity to
and concern for the sanctity of human life, will be the extent to which you are
punished.</B><BR><BR>I will be discussing this issue in much more detail in
upcoming essays. Please view this as a brief introduction to a very complex
subject, although you will find many more details in my essays <A
href="http://thesacredmoment.blogspot.com/2006/02/essays-based-on-work-of-alice-miller.html"
target=_blank>based on the work of Alice Miller.</A><BR><BR>Consider the opening
of the final installment of my series, "On Torture." (All of the entries in that
series are <A href="http://thesacredmoment.blogspot.com/2006/01/on-torture.html"
target=_blank>described here.</A>) <A
href="http://thesacredmoment.blogspot.com/2005/12/on-torture-vib-truth-that-lies-within.html"
target=_blank>That entry began</A>: </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.79in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.79in"><B>Children who
become too aware of things are punished for it and internalize the coercion to
such an extent that as adults they give up the search for awareness. But
because some people cannot renounce this search in spite of coercion, there is
justifiable hope that regardless of the ever-increasing application of
technology to the field of psychological knowledge, Kafka's vision of the
penal colony with its efficient scientifically-minded persecutors and their
passive victims is valid only for certain areas of our life and perhaps not
forever. For the human soul is virtually indestructible, and its ability to
rise from the ashes remains as long as the body draws breath.</B> -- Alice
Miller, at the conclusion of the "Afterword" to <A
href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374522693/103-2593436-0184623?ie=UTF8&tag=thelightofrea-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0374522693"
target=_blank><I>For Your Own Good</I></A></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>I have read extensively in my life, and Alice Miller is the most
profoundly courageous writer in the world today to my knowledge. She writes
unflinchingly and with a gaze that never turns away from what it perceives, no
matter how horrifying it may be. Miller describes the untold cruelties that
are inflicted on the most innocent and defenseless of victims -- infants and
very young children. Almost all of us accept these cruelties to one degree or
another. I am not speaking only of the obvious cruelties, of corporal
punishment and similar barbarities -- although we should never forget that the
great majority of parents believe that spanking is sometimes necessary. I will
begin to trace the connections here at the outset: just as Charles Krauthammer
maintains that <A
href="http://thesacredmoment.blogspot.com/2005/12/on-torture-v-monsters-confession-and.html"
target=_blank>we are "morally <I>compelled"</I> to utilize torture</A> in rare
circumstances in the name of our own survival, so most parents believe that
physical violence is sometimes morally <I>"required"</I> if their children are
to be taught to be "civilized."<BR><BR><B>Let us try to be as brave as Alice
Miller: what we mean by "civilized" when we speak in this way, is that
children must be taught to </B><I><B>obey.</B></I><B> If the principle of
obedience is instilled in children from earliest infancy, and if parents
further teach their children that physical violence is the means of commanding
obedience, why do we wonder that some adults will torture those who have been
rendered helpless and delivered into their control? They are merely reenacting
what their parents taught them.<BR><BR>But we refuse to see this. We will not
acknowledge what has been done to us. Miller continues in her work, because
she understands better than anyone that these issues </B><I><B>must</B></I><B>
be understood if the horrors are to be stopped. But she has met with fierce
resistance every step of the way. In a similar way, although on an immensely
more modest scale, I have found that many readers who agree with me on many
issues -- and many readers who may have followed this series so far, nodding
their heads in confirmation at every point in my argument -- will stop here.
They will not acknowledge these particular truths, because they are too
threatening.<BR><BR>This is because there is a necessary corollary to the
obedience we are taught: the idealization of the authority figures in our
lives. As children, we dare not question what our parents do: we depend on
them for life itself. To comprehend fully what is being done to us would be
unbearable, and it might literally kill us. So we must believe that, whatever
our parents do, they do it "for our own good." To believe otherwise is the
forbidden thought. So we must deny our own pain when we are young; such denial
is necessary if we are to survive at that stage in our lives.<BR><BR>But if we
maintain the denial when we become adults, it spreads throughout our lives.
When such modes of thought are established in our psychologies, they cannot be
isolated or contained. We deny our own pain -- so we must deny the pain of
others. If we acknowledge their pain fully and allow ourselves to realize what
it means, it will necessarily call up our own wounds. But this remains
intolerable and forbidden. In extreme cases, we must dehumanize other human
beings: they become "the other," the less-than-human. By using such devices,
we make inflicting untold agonies on another person possible: if they are not
even human, it doesn't matter if we torture them. This is always how we create
hell on earth.<BR><BR>I said I was not referring only to the obvious cruelties
inflicted on children by physical violence. Just as important, and often of
much greater significance, are the psychological agonies to which parents
subject their children. How often do we hear parents say to a child who will
not follow an order: "Why are you making me so unhappy? You don't want to make
your mother unhappy and sad, do you, darling? Now just do what I say." We
should recognize this for what it is: emotional blackmail. The unstated threat
-- but the threat that is deeply </B><I><B>felt</B></I><B> by the child, even
if he is not able to </B><I><B>understand</B></I><B> it -- is that the
parent's love will be withdrawn unless the child obeys. Since the child knows
that his life depends on that love, the threat is a terrifying one. Such blows
are delivered countless times every day, by millions of parents around the
world.<BR><BR>This knowledge is inaccessible to the majority of adults. We are
taught to obey, and we learn to idealize our parents. We tell ourselves they
did the best they could, or they couldn't help it. In one sense, that is true:
they raise their children as they were raised. They learned obedience very
well, and they do to their own children what was done to them. But most of us
cannot leave this truth at this point: to maintain the veneration of our
parents, we must insist that they in fact were </B><I><B>right</B></I><B> --
that they did it "for our own good." That is where the great danger
lies.<BR><BR>When the idealization of the authority figure spreads once we
become adults, it can encompass additional authority figures. There are two
primary such figures: God -- who may have been there from the beginning, if
the child is raised in a very religious household where God is the ultimate
authority, and the parents only speak on His behalf; and country. When one's
nation becomes such an authority figure, there are subsidiary ones as well:
the nation's leaders, and the nation's military.</B></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV>I have traced the various ways in which these dynamics express themselves
in many essays: see, for example, <A
href="http://thesacredmoment.blogspot.com/2004/03/roots-of-horror-voice-of-thug-and.html"
target=_blank>"The Voice of the Thug, and the Harbinger of Horrors Still To
Come,"</A> about the elections in Spain several years ago; <A
href="http://thesacredmoment.blogspot.com/2004/08/when-demons-come.html"
target=_blank>"When the Demons Come,"</A> about common cruelties and how they
lead to atrocities, in Vietnam in the past and in Iraq today; and in a number of
others.<BR><BR>In still another essay, I summarized the elements <A
href="http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2006/01/limits-of-politics-i-roots-of-politics.html"
target=_blank>of this pattern as follows</A>: </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE><B>There are several interlocking parts of the mechanisms that
Miller describes that must be kept in mind -- and these parts help to explain
what is missing from our political debates. The first part is <I>obedience</I>
to the demands of the parent and/or other authority figure -- the second part
is <I>denial</I> of the pain experienced by the child himself, when he is made
to "conform" to arbitrary edicts and to suppress his own spontaneous, genuine
emotions -- the third part is <I>idealization</I> of the parent and/or
additional authority figure, since the child depends on the parent for life
itself and dares not challenge the parent or the parent's "good intentions" --
and the final, inevitable part is the denial of the pain experienced by
<I>others.</I> If we fully acknowledge the injuries sustained by others and
the pain they experience, it will call up our own injuries. Because this would
call into question our most fundamental sense of ourselves, this cannot be
permitted. In this manner, the deadening of the soul -- which began with our
own souls -- must expand to deaden us to the full reality of the selves of
others.</B></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV>The most fundamental lesson taught by the Morton West episode is the
necessity of <I>obedience</I> -- obedience to whatever those in authority
demand, even if it is criminal war, or torture, or murder, or numerous other
forms of cruelty. The necessarily related lesson is <I>denial</I> -- first
denial of our own truth, including our own emotional truth and our own pain, and
then the denial of the truth of others, including their pain. As I often note,
this is the mechanism that inevitably leads to Hell on earth, in its countless
forms.<BR><BR>These students have been taught that they must always obey, that
the authorities will lie to them to obtain their compliance, and that they must
learn to deny and repress what they know to be true. If they do not, their lives
will be destroyed, in whole or in part. The price of "success" is the
destruction of their own souls, which is the necessary prelude to the
destruction of others. As we know from the state of our culture, and from the
horrors we inflict on Iraq and the further horrors we may be about to inflict <A
href="http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/08/worsening-nightmare.html"
target=_blank>on still more of the world</A>, far, far too many people are more
than willing to pay that price.<BR><BR>I have tried to explain, too briefly and
I fear in a manner that is not nearly sufficient, why these students should be
honored and celebrated. Instead, in our country today, they are being punished,
and some of them may be destroyed completely. These students embody awareness,
compassion, and a dedication that is unknown to the great majority of adults. As
most people become adults, they learn to compromise, to go along to get along,
and to "settle." They learn to work "within the system," even when the system is
irreversibly corrupt, inherently destructive, and endlessly
murderous.<BR><BR>These students are hope. They are the future, if we are still
fortunate enough to deserve one. These students have earned their right to a
peaceful, joyous future. Most adults can no longer say the same.<BR><BR><I>Honor
them.</I> It's the very least we can do.<BR><BR>UPDATE: In an act of profound
courage worthy of, well, the current Democratic Congress, the school board has
decided <A
href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-mortonprotest_09_webnov09,1,1989534.story"
target=_blank>to postpone its vote</A> on the students' possible expulsion. The
news story contains these additional details of interest: </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE><B>Many complained that tension over the Iraq war has increased at
the school because military recruiters are targeting their children in the
hallways and cafeteria at lunchtime. Some people said: "Expel the recruiters
and not the students." Many in the audience said that the recruiters target
schools that have a large population of Latino and minority students.<BR><BR>A
disabled Gulf War veteran, Cesar Ruvalcaba, who was in uniform, told board
members that recruiters lie to students.<BR><BR>"Shame on the administrators
who think receiving military money from recruiters is more important than the
education of their students," Ruvalcaba said. "I am 100-percent disabled and I
learned the hard way that education, not carrying a machine gun, is the key to
success. These kids should receive extra credit for speaking up, not
expulsion."<BR><BR>...<BR><BR>Jonathon Acevedo, a student who faces expulsion,
said officials are targeting him and other students for no reason. "We weren't
violent in anyway," Acevedo said. We were holding hands and singing "Kumbaya"
and "Give Peace a Chance."<BR><BR>Acevedo's aunt, Gladys Hansen-Guerra, said
her nephew is being singled out because he's an average student and a Latino.
"The administration is giving harder punishments to students who won't tell
them who organized the protest," said Hansen-Guerra. "It was a group effort.
They are trying to offer leniency to those who point out the organizers. This
isn't a fascist state. They [school officials] aren't the CIA. These are
16-year old kids."</B></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV>I omitted some further lessons: racism and classism. My apologies. And the
United States may not yet be a full-fledged "fascist state," but, my, <A
href="http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2006/09/thus-world-was-lost.html"
target=_blank>we are making good progress.</A><BR><BR>No further comment. For
the moment. </DIV>
<DIV><EM>posted by Arthur Silber at <A
href="http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/11/when-awareness-is-crime-and-other.html"
target=_blank>1:19 PM</A></EM></DIV>
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