NEA on Sept. 11 - don't go blaming anybody, but criticizing U.S. or yourself is OK

The BBQ Pit
1

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020819-34549100.htm

OK, I think this is a ridiculous position, but I can live with it. We’ll just forget about those videotapes of Osama bin Laden, the documents found in Al Qaeda headquarters following the invasion of Afghanistan, the connections drawn between the hijackers and Al Qaeda.

Nothing matters until a judge and/or jury says it matters. For purposes of convicting someone for a crime, I agree. In any other context, that’s a ridiculous position, especially regarding Sept. 11. But fine; go ahead and have it.

However, THIS is where my blood pressure rises:

Please make special note of the fact that this “lesson” is part of a suggested lesson plan for September 11 remembrance.

Maybe our public schools should stick to reading, writing and 'rithmatic, instead of indoctrinating a bunch of little leftists whose mantra is “criticize America early and often, but everybody else gets a pass.”

That’s the job of our universities, dammit!

Oh, and in case you want to immediately bash the Washington Times, here’s the direct link to what they are talking about. I got to it by going through nea.org and their “Remembering September 11” links, exactly as the article states: http://www.jfku.edu/psych/parents.html

I should note that I agree with much of what is listed on the list. But I don’t think the Washington Times is unfairly portraying what’s stated there. See numbers 4 and 10 under “Tips for Parents and Teachers.”

I especially spit Coke on this from Number 4:

So go out of your way to ensure no one assigns blame to anyone over the Sept. 11 attacks that killed about 3,000 U.S. civilians. But, if they want to blame themselves in some way, that could be constructive. :confused:

Number 4 continues:

This from the writer who, a few sentences earlier, wrote, “Use non-speculative terms. Do not suggest any group is responsible. Do not repeat the speculations of others, including newscasters. Do not encourage or allow random blaming.”

However, if you want to let people off the hook before all the facts are in, by all fucking means! And Al Qaeda didn’t have “sanctions” from the Taliban? Al Qaeda worked “independently” from the Taliban?

I think we will soon find that many Al Qaeda members have fled into Iran and Iraq, with the blessings of the government there. But that’s just speculation on my part.

There are some good messages in what’s proposed on that webpage. Too bad it had to be undercut by a bunch of outrageous liberal clap-trap.

Stick to polluting your own kids’ minds, pal. I’ll thank you not to do it my (hypothetical) children.

2

Yet another reason to send WV_Toddler to a private school.

3

because, of course, America is never to blame.

Now, before you explode, I don’t think America brought September 11th on themselves. But to blindly skip past reasons for what motivated the terrorists is a mistake.

If you ignore the past, you jepordize the future.

4

Did he fucking say that, TWISTY? Did he fucking say that?

Before I explode, my ass. No one – no one – had advocated “blindly skipping past what motivated the terrorists.” What MILO said is that the NEA is applying an double-standard, in that it is careful not to blame any other country or organization for 9/11, but thinks the fucking remembrance day would be a dandy time to think about American transgressions.

Jesus Christ. Learn to fucking read.

5

I wasn’t aware the Sept. 11 hijackers were motivated by American Japanese internment camps during World War II.

6

And allow me to say that I have great respect for you generally and think highly of you as a poster. But there is no fucking way you can extrapolate that from what MILO said.

This is not an all or nothing proposition. If a person to come in and say “This position of the NEA is fucked up, and here are the reasons” that does NOT mean that person is saying “America is never to blame.” How the hell do you get that from what he said? You have to willfully misread his post, and you have to import some American apologist, “we’re always right 100% of the time” point of view that quite simply is not there. NOT THERE. And it seriously pissed me off.

This subject is hard enough to discuss without people dropping by to totally misread and misstate what others have said. Especially people who by any measure are smart enough to refrain, and who clearly ought to know better.

7

I don’t get the “self blame” thing, but the clear intent of what the NEA is pushing is to avoid whipping up racial and religious intolerance. They’re saying the message ought to be, “It’s not OK to blame your neighbors or your classmates for what happened because they are “Arabs” or because they practice Islam. That’s not what the U.S. is about. We’ve done that before and it was the wrong thing to do.” When the NEA says “don’t blame a group” it means "Don’t blame “Arabs” or Muslims just because they are Arabs or Muslims.

It’s all very well to recognize that Islam does have some virulent strains that are incompatible with Western liberal democracy but you may have a tough time explaining, say, Wahhabism or the succession of Ali to a third grader. If you can teach them not to pick on Rashid just because his parents came from Iran, you’ll be way ahead.

In fact, you’d be doing well to communicate this to certain adults. From the article:

**

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All I can say Twist, is if there message was what you just said it was, and they left it at that, I’d be in total agreement.

I already noted I agreed with much of what they listed. Most of which was the overall message that you pointed to.

But they didn’t just do that. They did what I described in detail in my OP. They pushed an agenda - one that a great many Americans find offensive as hell.

You’ll note I didn’t quote from Lind because I don’t agree with him. I think he is taking a simplistic view of the matter. But then, so is someone who says “The Muslim religion is not to blame for this terrorism, hatred and violence.” In a general sense it isn’t; but the biggest propagators of a message of hate and destruction are certain mullahs. They are far more effective in developing Al Qaeda-like mindsets than any government leader.

9

Oops, that last message was for Truth Seeker.

People who think like Twist of Fate are directly responsible for dreck like that cited above.

10

Milo said:

Actually, it seems to be that when they say that “self blame could be a way for students to [feel] ‘in control’”, they are indicating that many people do use this type of thinking as a defense mechanism. I don’t think that they are advocating self-blame, merely warning teachers that a self-blame response on the part of the student isn’t an unusual response under these circumstances. I do think, however, that they could have worded that part a little better.

11

NEA are assholes and idiots and this is totally inappropriate. Sheesh. A huge crime was committed and we pretty much know who did it and we are supposed to not blame anyone? huh? How stupid can you be?

The lesson is that there are fanatics in the world and you have to be on guard and ready to defend yourself. That’s the lesson.

This is like going to the funeral of a cop who was killed and saying to the family: “Yes, but you have to understand the other side. Let’s talk about how criminals see this.”

There is a time and a place for everything and there is a time an a place to discuss how America can improve its relations with other countries and cultures but this is not the place or the time.

When I was about 12 I got this suspicion that teachers were idiots and it has grown stronger over the years. I guess they vote the most idiots of the idiots to head the NEA. Screw them.

12

How about the 19 hijackers? Or are they off-limits for blame too? :rolleyes:

Zev Steinhardt

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Umm the “group” that is responsible is Al Qaeda. They are a terrorist “group”. The notion that we should “not suggest any group is responsible” is PC lunacy.

Truthseeker says

Well no. I don’t think that the above is the “clear intent” of the NEA. While I do agree that they are opposed to stereotyping of Muslims, it appears that they are "intending"more. The idea that a lesson on Japanese internment during WWII is a relevant lesson for September 11, is well beyond the frickin pale.

14

I find this unbelievably annoying.

–Not the short list of tips, or the NEA’s endorsement of it; it’s the fact that smart people can work themselves up to a frenzy of indignation without fully engaging their intelligence that pisses me off. Far be it from me to try and dissuade those who’ve already made up their minds that all this is “liberal claptrap.” But for everyone else, here’s some facts you might consider while deciding whether to be upset about this.

The list was not generated by the NEA; in fact the suggestions come from the director of programs at John F. Kennedy University’s Graduate School of Professional Psychology. It is a list of suggestions to educators and parents of school children, it is not a polemic; its focus is child pshychology, not informational reportage. Much of the intent of the list is to provide a communication guide which facilitates healthy discussion of terrorism while trying to defuse the potential fear and hatred of specific ethnic groups which could be engendered by careless pronouncements of blame. This last point is key to understanding the language used in the various tips. --Again, this is not an informative or moral essay, it is a guide to psychologically healthy discussion of a difficult subject with children.

Let’s look at the two “Tips for Parents and Teachers” which gave both The Washington Times’ Ellen Sorokin and Milossarian such a conniption. For convenience, I’ll parse each idea in blue font as it is presented.

Only if we ignore the context in which this advice is given by the NEA is it possible to take the message of the list as “blame America.” This is not editorial advice to columnists or reporters. Nor is it political advice to legislators or executives. It’s advice to professionals or parents whose job or whose familial duty is to provide guidance and learning opportunities to young people in various developmental stages, who need to coexist peacefully with other young people in this very diverse country’s schools and playgrounds.

15

I’m all in favor of the NEA’s advice and I hope it’s the first of a long series of similar teaching agendas/lesson plans of a similar nature.

See, I’m a BIG supporter of school vouchers and every innane “Hate Amerika” lesson plan they suggest, every “blame Amerika first” statement they make is one more group who’ll vote my way. :slight_smile:

GO NEA!!!

Fenris

PS: What Xeno said was all spiffy, unfortunately, it’s not even close to what the NEA said. Especially this bit.

All well and good, but that’s not even remotely what the NEA said. I was a teacher for a couple of years (got my major in El. Ed.) and that’s not the message I got. If they’re gonna write in a secret code, they’ll haveta take the chance that people will take them at face value.

16

Well said.

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"“Blaming is especially difficult in terrorist situations because someone is at fault.”

Yeah, ain’t that a bitch? We’ve got to make sure that blame is turned inward. A good way is to equate the internment of Japanese-Americans in WWII and the “backlash against Arab-Americans during the Gulf War”. Maybe the kiddies will make the connection that our dastardly treatment of Arab-Americans as a result of the Gulf War provoked the attacks of 9/11.

Too bad a set of generally good recommendations also had to include fuel for the likes of Phyllis Schlafly.

18

Well, maybe they went a little overboard on the self-blame thing, but I don’t see why it’s that horrible. They were wrong, but I think their message was good. Said message being not scapegoating people based on race/religion, which is really easy to do, especially since we- and the human race in general- has a long colorful history of doing just that.

So in short, I agree with xenophon41. It’s probably important to emphasize that scapegoating is bad when talking to children. Although I suppose they should be told that it is likely the work of a known terrorist group, it’s significant that we not go off the deep end here and just further spread the hatred and anger.

sailor said

Actually, this probably is the best time. If we were just attacked a year ago, wouldn’t it be better to take action? And considering the animosity felt by the rest of the world toward us, isn’t improving relations a top priority right about now?

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Zoggie:

**
Were that their message, and their message alone, I would have had no problem with it.

**
Improving relations with those who dislike the USA, and hold misperceptions about it, should be ongoing.

Tying that message in any way to Sept. 11, however, carries the offensiveness of telling a woman who was gang-raped, “Well … you were known to get a little flirty at the bars …”

Have you ever read what Osama bin Laden’s reasons are for doing “all this?” In his own words? Do it. Do it some more.

You’ll never read a more hate-filled, intolerant person. Do you remember the Islamic fundamentalist repressions the Taliban placed on its own people? Read OBL’s words, and you’ll have a better understanding of why he felt real comfy in bed with them.

In a nutshell, he wants to kill Americans because we’re “evil,” in that we have such radical concepts as music and women who can be seen and even work. Because we have soldiers in Saudi Arabia, and we don’t hate Israel. (Although his meely-mouthed Israel-Palestine shit is all-new. He never said boo about that until Sept. 11. But he’s trying to rally all Muslims together now.)

Perhaps reading that you’ll understand why the hairs raise on the back of my neck whenever “but …” is added to a declaration of how terrible Sept. 11 was, by somebody who’s trying to prove they have a nuanced worldview.

And I find it particularly, bitterly ironic that the people who tend to insert the “but …” are those who otherwise are relentlessly against anything remotely intolerant.

I’d be really interested to know what we’re supposed to do to get “the rest of the world” to stop hating us so much. What people (especially those on the left in places like Europe and Latin America) have a tendency to do is to list their own dislikes of America when this point is discussed. But you want to get at the reasons America is under attack? Read OBL’s words. Then get back to me on what America is supposed to do.

Abandon Israel?

Find a nation that’s worked harder to develop peace between Israel and Palestine than the United States of America. Find one.

Get all troops out of the Middle East?

Put all our women out of work and have them get fitted for their burquas?

Is it a two-way street? Isn’t part of the onus of getting “them” to stop hating us on them?

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With that logic, Adolf Hitler never did anything wrong. Neither did Jack the Ripper. And all Al Capone was guilty of was tax evasion.