Wednesday, March 26, 2008
The NUT and the army
The National Union of Teachers has voted to oppose military recruitment activities in schools if they employ “misleading propaganda”. The MoD has denied recruiting in schools and said that its activities are to raise “general awareness of the armed forces in society, not to recruit”. The army can clearly offer a good career to young people; there are also of course very considerable risks. As one of the NUT delegates said of joining the army this is not a decision people should take lightly.
I am most impressed, however, by Mr. McGarr, a teacher from London, who said “Join the Army and we will send you to carry out the imperialist occupation of other people’s countries”. I was worried that teachers no longer held views like this. Clearly some still do: I hope Mr. McGarr also wears a cord jacket with leather elbow patches for teaching. Maybe the world has not changed after all.
Turgon @ 12:10 AM
“general awareness of the armed forces in society, not to recruit”.
just watching the news makes one aware enough of what a f**kup the middle east jaunt is, without needing to raise ‘awareness’ in schools. and if ‘not to recruit’ is an aim, i’d say they seem to be doing a fine job of it.
‘I hope Mr. McGarr also wears a cord jacket with leather elbow patches for teaching. Maybe the world has not changed after all. ‘
Maybe you wear an old beret and war medals on a beatup old blazer Turgon while tucking a copy of the daily mail under your arm. and ‘Maybe the world has not changed after all’ is a lament of this teacher, annoyed at seeing his country being the lapdog of the new empire builders at Pennsylvania Avenue.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 12:28 AMTurgon, you’ll be too young to remember this:
“Join the army. Visit strange and exotic places. Meet fascinating people. And kill them. SAYING (AMERICAN) 1960s.”
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 12:56 AMSorry, Turgon, but I would also be much closer to that teacher´s point of you than yours. What is Iraq if not an Imperialist occupation?
And I don´t think that it is at all clear that the Army, and I mean any army, is a good career option. Armies and military behaviour pattern screw people up, reinforcing our most primitive aggressive urges. How many 1,000s of soldiers will return from Iraq to the USA, permanently damaged, for example?
The good work the military sometimes do in humanitarian crises is far outweighed by the bad done in wars, IMHO.Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 01:34 AMErr for point of you, read point of view. (It´s late!)
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 01:36 AMTurgon
This teacher McGarr sounds like a Taig.
Take no notice of him!
The declining Britannia will need all her soldiery over the next few decades for fighting Allah’s boys.
Maybe another 36th Divison could be raised to go the land of Mohammed?
That prospect meets with my full approval :0)Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 02:48 AMIf students at school today are unaware of the reality of military life (ie shooting and killing people and being shot and and killed in return) then I fear the fault lies with the inept and barely educated members of the teaching “profession” rather than through any “misleading propaganda” from the Army.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 03:34 AMThe imams of the EuroCaliphate will make good use of your soccer stadiums. Hopefully broadcast on Al Jazeera. Pacifist morons (imho).
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 03:37 AMBob
get out much or are you too busy in re-education camps and marching with the masachusette’s militia
A mind is a terrible thing to waste.... its nice to see you aren’t
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 04:11 AM“The National Union of Teachers has voted to oppose military recruitment activities in schools if they employ “misleading propaganda”.”
Teachers don’t want any competition, now do they?
Nevin: ““Join the army. Visit strange and exotic places. Meet fascinating people. And kill them. SAYING (AMERICAN) 1960s.””
To be fair, I shouldn’t be surprised if the Greeks and Macedonians under Alexander the Great didn’t have some trite saying that amounted to the same.
I seem to recall a bit of Norse graffiti that, translated, amounted to “Half-dan was here.” Mayhap Kilroy’s ancestor…
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 04:55 AMI hope all those in favour of military recruitment at our schools and universities are first in line with their sons and daughters. Or are you only in favour of sending other people’s kids to invade and kill/be killed on your behalf?
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 06:08 AMI’m sure any teacher, cord jacket wearing or not, would be disgusted with the idea that the young people they are educating won’t go on to do something useful in the world, such as cure cancer etc, but will instead end up as suicide bomb fodder in Iraq or Afghanistan or like that poor misguided young man, Harry Windsor, directing air strikes against farmers.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 09:11 AMWe should also remember Dungannon headmaster Fr Denis Faul who did so much to keep young men out of the army that Concubhar admires so much.
Care to say a few words in praise of Fr Faul, Concubhar? Or do you need to check the official non-persons list first?Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 09:16 AMI am not sure i get what you are all saying. What is wrong in wanting to join your own countries armed forces? For some people in society it is maybe the best career opportunity available to them.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 09:54 AMThe NUT cares about the NUT
The NUT have recently teamed up with a radical gays right org which named one of it’s prizes after a founding member (Ian Dunn) of the Paedophile Information Exchange.
Apparently 4 out of 10,000 kids are missing out on gay sex lessons. Hence the NUT are need to help (the Ian Dunn fan club) force the two evading truants back into PC indoctrination.
Teaching unions exist to protect the interests of teachers, that is the primary goal of the NUT. They’re like lawyers for the accused, they’re on one side and only the one side.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 10:07 AM“Or are you only in favour of sending other people’s kids to invade and kill/be killed on your behalf?”
If we want to keep the Christian component of Anatolia & Mesopotmania at something over zero
there may be few alternatives to perpetual war. I’d sooner the British military were not there.
(They’re useless)
Like Rwanda, the region has already shown itself capable of being ab;le to out-kill the Nazis.
When you see Muslims trying to wipe out other Muslims, Christians don’t stand much of a chance.
Saddam Hussein, will look like a modest enough butcher compared to what is possible.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 10:14 AMThis is interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_McGarr
Mr McGarr is a long-time SWP member and was the Respect candidate in Tower Hamlets in 2004. His biog describes him as “a socialist historian”.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 10:32 AMI have expressed no admiration for any army here, SRR. A life in the military is mostly wasted as far as I’m concerned.
However if you’re alluding to the IRA as I suspect you are, it seems that you’re scoring an own goal by equating an illegal paramilitary force with a sovereign army, albeit a sovereign army in illegal occupation of both Iraq and NI.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 10:35 AMwell played Turgon
You’ve really dragged out the Sparts on this thread. I’d guess most of them are teachers- ghastly people who one wouldn’t want to live beside in case they tried to get one to take up golf or caravanning. They probably call their pet Yorskhire terriers Mugabe and Mandela. And they might even argue that wine has got better in Chile, South Africa, and Australia after the coming to power of “progressive” (yuk) governments in those countries, when we know this to be a fallacy.
They often used to smoke a pipe in my time, but now- like Adams- they’ve given up and presumably get their kicks from the fumes of their mung bean stew or somesuch muck.
My old guru Malcolm McClaren got it right “Never trust a hippy”Sometime you’re up in Belfast we’ll have to drop in to the Reform Club for a couple of single malts and a leisurely debate on how much better the world would be if levelheaded practical men like ourselves were back in charge.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 10:45 AM*that poor misguided young man, Harry Windsor*
Do you perhaps mean Cornet Harry Wales or some other soldier called Harry Windsor whom we’ve never heard of?
*I hope all those in favour of military recruitment at our schools and universities are first in line with their sons and daughters. Or are you only in favour of sending other people’s kids to invade and kill/be killed on your behalf?*
The last time I checked the British army was an entirely voluntary force which only rercruits adults, so no on would be forced to join, only those would like to. If my son wanted to do so when he was an adult I certainly wouldn’t object though I might be very concerned as I would if he wanted to be a sky diver or a test pilot.
I wouldn’t particularly want my children to be refuse collectors or firemen, both perfectly honourable if occasionally unpleasant professions but I would be perfectly happy to allow their organisations to recruit in schools.
Wouldn’t you?
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 11:12 AMHow dangerous is serving in the army anyway?
The British Army has had 175 fatalities in five years in Iraq, an average of 35 a year. It has had on average 4,200 personnel in theatre, giving an in-theatre annual fatality rate of 0.8 per cent.However, the UK forces have 225,000 people in full-time and full-time reserve, so assuming Afghanistan is equally dangerous (and I don’t think the UK is in action anywhere else) the chance of dying in combat for UK personnel, even with two serious wars on, is just 0.03 per cent, or 31 people per 100,000.
That means joining the services, even in a time of war, is safer than becoming a construction worker, a fireman, a farmer or an electrician.
Somehow, I doubt this would satisfy Mr McGarr. He may think statistical arguments are a ploy of the phallocentric capitalist hegemony.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 11:52 AMNever ever trust a hippy, the COC sub-culture in Holland was incidently well ahead of developments in San Francisco, by four years, they even had the ‘evil ones’ before anybody else.
Gay liberation was eventually paid for by a cocktail of sex-bars, narcotics, prostitution and pornography, with some legitimate comparison to SF, that money became rather hard to give up.
(it was a no-brainer to keep it)
So Amsterdam became what it became, integration was (homophile agenda) rejected in favor of something far more radical. Homosexuality was denied in the process.
That by the way is still the position, a kind of second dailism for queers.
“Homosexuality does not exist’, oddly enough voted upon at a queer only conference, the irony was not lost on the (theoretically) non-existing franchise.
The hippy thing helped, I made a fortune out of them, private money, not handed over to the mvement, I later went on to direct other funds to anti-nuclear campaigns etc.
We were awash with cash. The source of which was originally alternative lifestyles, movies, records, media, but mostly gay bars and pornography.
The hippies eventually took over the retail of drugs. The suppy end stayed as per the COC cartel in Amsterdam. Sex liberation was a bit like fuel-smuggling, cigarette imports, and whatever.
The same deal, but a far bigger scale in Holland.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 12:04 PMIs it a two-for-one offer on nutters around here now? Screw this, I’m away.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 12:10 PMIf I lived on the shore road, I’d be happy to get out and see how the other half lived.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 12:12 PM“I am not sure i get what you are all saying. What is wrong in wanting to join your own countries armed forces? For some people in society it is maybe the best career opportunity available to them. “
West Virginia? Yup, historical memories of the civil war, combined with being shafted by ultra-capitalism, no other opportunities.
They kind of want to join anyway, them being good unionists and everything, and at the same time don’t have a lot of choice.
It’s not going to college.
In Britain if they take themselves to Hartleppol, they’re bound to score a platoon, better than trying in St. Ives or Hampstead.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 12:17 PM“I am most impressed, however, by Mr. McGarr, a teacher from London, who said “Join the Army and we will send you to carry out the imperialist occupation of other people’s countries”.”
To be fair to McGarr, Turgon, he did say rather more than that. Perhaps you could have posted an alternative quote:
“Join the Army, and if you survive and come home, possibly injured or mentally damaged, you and your family will be shabbily treated.”
or this one from the Daily Telegraph:
Stefan Simms, a teacher from Ealing, west London, also criticised adverts for the Royal Marines broadcast at half-time during televised football matches, which he claimed were “glamorising gang culture”. He said young troops were being used as “cannon fodder for the profits of oil companies”.
You may have noted a connection between the military adventures of some of our political leaders and the price of fuel for your home and your car.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 12:20 PM
