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McCarthyism -- Uh, I Mean, National Security Begins in the Classroom!
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By Paul Shrug, Section News
Posted on Thu May 15th, 2003 at 03:47:44 PM PDT
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At Oakland (CA) High School, during a classroom debate about the Iraqi War, one student, John, casually joked that "we need a sniper to take care of Bush." His friend, Billy, laughed and responded, "I'll do it!"
Their teacher, Sandy Whitney, considered that a threat to the life of the President, so she turned her own students in to the feds.
In no time Secret Service agents had swarmed upon Oakland High to interrogate John and Billy, who upon asking the agents for the right to remain silent until attorneys were consulted, were told by the agents, "We own you. You don't have any legal rights."
Well, at least someone in the Bush Admin finally has the balls to say it out loud: Citizens, you're our bitches.
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| Initial reports from KRON, as linked to above, didn't mention the exact nature of the "threat" John or Billy had made. The Oakland Tribune reported, after interviews with John and Billy, about the sniper comment. John made it and Billy agreed. Billy also said, "Bush is wacked." In addition to "wacked" being a slang term for crazy, stupid or simply mentally incapable, "whacked" is of course also hitman speak for "assassinated".
A very paranoid Whitney -- who apparently has spent her entire life not hearing one single fleeting desire that whatever President was in office would just dry up and die -- called the feds.
The agents reportedly held John and Billy in a private room with no adults present. When John asked if they had the right to remain silent (which they do, don't they?), the feds made the "we own you" remark. There are two reasons that's troubling. The obvious one is that the feds clearly breached the laws of fair interrogation. At the very least, students have the right to have a parent or adult figure in the room when they're being grilled.
The second reason that's troubling (in my opinion, which I concede will sound like a stretch) is because this took place in Oakland's inner city. Although the race of John and Billy isn't revealed, Oakland's inner city has had a high minority population for decades. During Bush Sr.'s Administration, lots of theories about the decrepit condition of ghettos and inner city kids revolved around the Bush Family's channeling drugs into the inner city via the CIA, which Bush Sr. headed at one time.
So, the agents could have, if you buy that theory, and I don't dismiss it, been saying something even more packed with meaning than "During this time of crisis, we own your asses." They could have been saying "We've owned your ass ever since we let Noriega pipe rock candy into your streets."
Okay, it's a bit of fancy on my part, but that's what struck me at first anyway.
Back to the kids -- Oakland teachers are really pissed off at one of their own for this one, saying John and Billy were clearly deprived of their legal rights to free speech when the teacher picked up the phone. The kids are traumatized over this, the parents are considering a lawsuit.
So the next time we're at a bar discussing how we should handle the Bush problem, I guess we should limit our final solution to a high colonic or else the bartender's going to have to turn us in.
This story came to my attention through morons.org. |
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