April 04, 2006
Seattle Ballot Measure Bans Military Recruiters
(Seattle, Washington) The Garfield High School PTSA (Parent Teacher Student Association) has collected enough signatures to put an anti-war measure on the city-wide November ballot. Called the College Not Combat Initiative, I-86, the initiative will decide whether military recruiters should be allowed on Seattle city property and in schools.
In the past, the Garfield PTSA has spearheaded anti-military measures with most people believing them to be symbolic. However, supporters disagree.
From Seattle Times:
Amy Hagopian, president of Garfield's PTSA, is a lead organizer of the initiative effort. She bristles at the word "symbolic" and compares the initiative to effective historical protests such as civil-rights sit-ins.
In
my opinion, the comparison to civil rights protests is inappropriate. Nonetheless, although it's ostensibly symbolic, the proposal, if passed, would establish a committee to report on "whether the public schools and the city were inadvertently encouraging recruiting."
It's not clear exactly what comprises 'inadvertent encouragement.' It is clear, however, that the parent-teacher association seems to pay more attention to promoting a liberal political agenda than educating students in reading, writing, and arithmetic.
From Interested-Participant.
Posted by: Mike Pechar at
10:04 PM
| Comments (7)
| Add Comment
Post contains 190 words, total size 2 kb.
1
Do some more research on this one Jawa. Amy Hagopian use to be a member of the Garfield PTSA, but was asked to step down after the PTSA tried to pass a similar measure and the Federal Government stepped in and said "Fine, but we will take all our money away from Seattle School district" Upon which caused a minor scandal in Seattle since the board ask Mrs. Hagopian to step down and pulled back from passing the measure. It has also been reported in Seattle media that she has verbally harrassed military recuriters when they have shown up to Garfield High School. Mrs. Hagopian is primarly intrested not in the student of her school nor of Seattle, but of protesting what she calls "the illegal war in Iraq and Afghanistan" and of President Bush in general. It is a shame, going to use the kids of a city as part of a power play.
Posted by: Charles at April 04, 2006 11:55 PM (s3V7c)
2
This quote is a chestnut for me:
"She bristles at the word "symbolic" and compares the initiative to effective historical protests such as civil-rights sit-ins."
It says something about this person that she resents being seen as making a symbolic statement and would rather be compared to a person who sits on the floor until she is hauled away like a stubborn child.
As to the initiative, being a Seattle citizen I would vote for it so long as they made it content-neutral and charged their committee with reporting on "whether the public schools and the city were inadvertently encouraging pacifism."
Amateurs. Don't these people know anything about building a coalition?
Posted by: ShannonKW at April 05, 2006 02:32 AM (dT1MB)
3
Gee -- didn't the Supreme Court more or less settle this issue a couple of weeks ago when it dealt with law schools refusing access to recruiters. How much more would the logic of the decision apply to public schools, which receive large amounts of government funding?
Posted by: Rhymes With Right at April 05, 2006 04:06 AM (zrfbY)
4
Hey! No problem. We need a few military re-deployments. ... If this passes, in addition to cutting off Federal Money to Seattle schools, we can close Ft. Lewis and cancel all those nasty military contracts at Boeing and Microsoft. You know, we don't want to corrupt the children of Seattle with all this militaristic jingoism.
Posted by: Charlie at April 05, 2006 06:03 AM (DwY9A)
5
I hope they reject this stupid measure and vote to oust these PTA leftists
Posted by: sandpiper at April 05, 2006 08:36 AM (O2c+K)
6
No, no, let's all agree that it's not symbolic. It's purposefully refusing to do their share to contribute to the defense of the country.
The only real question is what is the rest of the country going to do about it?
Posted by: TM Lutas at April 05, 2006 04:23 PM (z/jms)
7
You can try to dismiss it by saying that it's just some wacky PTA leftists, but what about the 60% of San Francisco voters who voted yes on a similar initiative last year? Or the 24 out of 30 Wisconsin cities that just voted against the War in Iraq? Are all of these people just "PTA leftists"?
Posted by: Chris at April 07, 2006 04:22 PM (ZrVR1)
Hide Comments
| Add Comment
Comments are disabled.
Post is locked.
18kb generated in CPU 0.0208, elapsed 0.1181 seconds.
118 queries taking 0.1101 seconds, 234 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
