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Ticket To War: No Moron Left Behind

By Jon Rappoport | nomorefakenews | September 1, 2013

You’re just a click away on your remote. Get the popcorn. It’s a blast. This one has moral stature. They used chemical weapons, so they will pay.

Don’t miss Chris Matthews. He’s tingling all over. “The president did the right thing and he upheld the Constitution. Only a living god could figure out how to pull that off.”

Welcome to the Syrian theater. All the players are assembled. Which one will intervene and turn a two-day blitz into a global conflagration?

We realize you don’t have whatever it takes to actually enlist in the Armed Forces and do six insane tours in Afghanistan building A-frames and wondering when one of those villagers will shoot you in the head. No problem. You can experience a very good simulacrum in your own mind. The anticipation. The adrenaline flow. The sweaty palms. Then the limbic thrust of revenge.

And as a bonus? No court martial when it turns out you killed an Afghan who was just reaching in his coat pocket for a screwdriver to attach his new front door!

The Syrian run-up is almost as good as the first missile launch. Click to Wolf Blitzer as he recalls his coverage of Gulf War One, when he made his bones purely on the basis of his name.

Catch the living cadaver, Scott Pelley, as he flashes back on his work at the Davidian siege at Waco.

Count down to the first explosion with the eternal newsboy riding his bike and flipping papers on front porches, Brian Williams.

Feel the undertone of sodden grief with Dianne Sawyer (weeps for everybody/all the time) as she does war as only a former America’s Junior Miss can.

And then, boom! You’re there. The attack is on! The sky over Damascus lights up! What unknown newsman, standing on a rooftop, narrating the unfolding scene, will emerge from the carnage with name recognition and a sudden career bump that makes his colleagues want to murder him in his sleep.

It’s the news! Tune in!

Exit From the Matrix

America is united again. Feel it. What took us so long to find each other once more? Post your experience on Facebook. Share your ecstasy with faux friends. Recite the Pledge of Allegiance against a hip-hop track and hope it goes viral.

Finally, all the goody-two-shoes questions about who used chemical weapons and which side we’re backing in Syria and who is al Qaeda and the CIA sending weapons and killers from Libya to Syria are gone. Erased. This is the show! This is what counts! Pretext? Invented provocation? False flag? Don’t bother me, I’m eating war!

If only we still had the Rat Pack around. Frank, Dean, Sammy, Lawford, and Joey Bishop. They could do a Sarin Night at the Desert Inn and wow the crowd with their support for the guys who launch the Tomahawks.

If your brother-in-law is over at the house as you watch the missile strike and he says, “You know, there’s no good proof Assad used poison gas,” poke him in the eye with a sizzling hot dog on a stick and yell, “USA! USA! USA!”

You might also try, “Obamacare! Immigration reform! Climate change! Carbon tax! NSA! Surveillance State! Gun control! Drone attacks!”

Suddenly, they’re in. They were out, but now the Commander-in-Chief has his hand on the pulse of the nation. We’re off life support. Who cares about Fast&Furious, the IRS non-profit division, Benghazi? They’re in the rearview mirror and we’re accelerating down the superhighway to fame and fortune. Jobs? We can live off our own fumes!

Mind-controlled androids? This is who we are! Love it, live it, watch it, soak it in!

God bless Congress for giving Obama back Constitutional authority to kill the enemy of the terrorists we’re backing.

Jon Rappoport The author of two explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at http://www.nomorefakenews.com

September 2, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Student Harassed by Teacher for Not Standing for Pledge

Standing Up for the Right to Sit Down

ACLU | February 23, 2010

GERMANTOWN, MD – Despite free speech guarantees in the Bill of Rights, state law, and in the Montgomery County School System’s student guide, the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland (ACLU) has had to take action on behalf of a middle school student who was harassed and humiliated by a teacher for declining to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. In a letter sent February 5 to Khadija F. Barkley, Acting Principal of Roberto Clemente Middle School, the ACLU details why what was done to the traumatized student was wrong and humiliating, and seeks an apology and education on the meaning and importance of the First Amendment.

“The law is crystal clear that a public school cannot embarrass or harass a student for maintaining a respectful silence during the Pledge of Allegiance,” said Ajmel Quereshi, an attorney for the ACLU of Maryland. “While expression of patriotism in unsettling times is a worthy and admirable emotion, the Supreme Court says that patriotism is best honored by venerating the civil liberties enshrined in the Constitution and not by punishing or ridiculing those whose views might differ from our own.”

On January 27, a thirteen-year-old at Roberto Clemente Middle School chose neither to stand nor to speak during the school’s daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. Instead, she sat quietly while students recited the Pledge. Her teacher demanded she stand for the Pledge. When she did not stand, the teacher ordered her to leave the classroom and stand out in the hall. He threatened to give her detention for refusing to stand for the Pledge, and sent her to the counselor’s office. The next day, the student again declined to stand for the pledge. The teacher then called upon a school security officer to escort her out of the classroom and to the school counselor’s office. When the student’s mother reached out to an assistant principal for help in dealing with the teacher’s abusive and improper actions, the official said her daughter should instead apologize for her “defiance.” The student did apologize, twice.

However, the right of a student to refrain from participating during the Pledge has been settled law since 1943, when the Supreme Court held that students could not be forced to salute the flag. As the Court put it then, “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” Here in Maryland, the State Court of Appeals, in 1871, struck down as unconstitutional a state law that required students to salute the flag. Maryland law now explicitly exempts from the Pledge of Allegiance “any student or teacher who wishes to be excused.”

In addition, the Montgomery County school system explicitly acknowledges the student’s right to act as she did in the student handbook provision concerning “Patriotic Exercises”:

“You will have the opportunity to participate in and/or watch patriotic exercises in school.

You cannot be required to say a pledge, sing an anthem, or take part in patriotic exercises. No one will be permitted to intentionally embarrass you if you choose not to participate.”

The young girl was so traumatized by her teacher’s humiliating and inappropriate reaction, that she has not felt comfortable returning to school until the situation is addressed. Faced with the school’s unwillingness to acknowledge that the teacher had acted improperly, the mother contacted the ACLU for assistance. Even more shockingly, following the ACLU’s letter to the acting principal pointing out the law, and seeking an apology and explanation to the class to ease the girl’s return, the school system’s lawyer responded that school officials would not meet with the mother if she brought an ACLU lawyer to the meeting.

Quereshi noted that “every other school system has moved quickly to resolve Pledge of Allegiance issues when the ACLU has contacted them on behalf of students. It is appalling that, in this case, the school is refusing to meet to resolve the issue, and thus keeping the traumatized victim out of school even longer than necessary.”

The ACLU of Maryland’s letter asks that the teacher personally apologize to the student, and promise to respect her right to respectfully dissent in the future. We further request that the assistant principal and teacher review with the class that witnessed this incident the county school policy on patriotic exercise, and explain that trying to force a student to salute the flag is wrong, and it should never have occurred. It is our hope that this incident can be used as an educational opportunity for both students and teachers – as has been done in other Maryland schools when Pledge issues have arisen.

CONTACT: Meredith Curtis, ACLU of Maryland, 410-889-8555; media@aclu-md.org

February 25, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism | , , , | 7 Comments