Addicted to War

[MichaelM]

Saw this on the telly last night. Did a websearch and found some relevant links:

http://www.bauaw.org/2007/02/bauaw-newsletter-monday-february-5-2007_8542.html
4,000 ADDICTED To WAR books were delivered January 30, 2007
to the San Francisco School District to be used in high schools as
a supplemental book for history teachers, grades 10 thru 12.

[This is a great "comic book" style history of U.S. wars and
a very antiwar book...I recommend it highly. It should be
a regular history text! Many thanks to Pat Gerber. For
more information about the book and how you can
get a copy go to: http://www.addictedtowar.com/book.html
...bw]

The Curriculum and Materials Committee voted on this.
All three then-members of the sub-committee voted "Aye,"


http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=2785&volume_id=254&issue_id=280&volume_num=41&issue_num=19
It's a lucid time line of 230 years of American wars and conflicts. It's a well-researched text, footnoted from sources as varied as international newspapers, Department of Defense documents, and transcripts of speeches from scores of world leaders. It's been endorsed by such antiwar stalwarts as Susan Sarandon, Noam Chomsky, Helen Caldicott, Cindy Sheehan, and Howard Zinn, who called it "a witty and devastating portrait of US military history.

And it's a comic book that's going to be available for 10th-through-12th-grade students in San Francisco's public schools. Four thousand copies of Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Can't Kick Militarism, by Joel Andreas, have been purchased and donated to the San Francisco Unified School District using contributions gathered by local peace activist Pat Gerber.

I've just placed my own order for a copy to see what's inside.
Regarding the news coverage last night, they did mention that the book was approved for teaching in public schools but they only covered comments on the people that were opposed to teaching "solely" that "side of the story". Relevant keywords used: "brainwashing", "one-sided", were what was described about having this book taught in the school. Although the news also mentioned that as of that night's reporting, no book representing "the other side" (i.e. "fight against terrorism", how the US "won its freedom in its colonial past because of wars") was suggested as an opposing view to be taught alongside "Addicted To War".

 

[Cyre2067]

Without a sufficient understanding of ponerology this book will still maintain a mask of sanity for the psychopaths in power. If they want to give kids a book, give them Lobaczewski's Political Ponerology.

 

[Nienna]

If they want to give kids a book, give them Lobaczewski's Political Ponerology.

That would really have the zionist/neocons/Bush regime foaming at the mouth. But you are sooooooo right.

 

[MichaelM]

I thought about it some and I agree that Ponerology is _the_ text for showing the everyone where the problem really is. However, myself being once a kid before, I would imagine that I wouldn't be able to grok what I was reading. And after the first paragraph I would probably not give the book another glance for another decade or so.
What's nice about the comic book is that it is illustrated and a highly appealing medium to read from cover to cover.
And Lynne also makes a point that the zionist/necons/Bush regime would probably go to great lengths to prevent even a whiff Ponerology from ever appearing as an option in the kids (or teachers) minds.
That kind of info (Ponerology) needs to be taken in one idea at a time, imho. Although I have yet to read "Addicted to War", from the few strips that were displayed in the news coverage, I think the comic is a good place to start feeding some "new" ideas to the kids. Especially those that would otherwise not seek out that information for themselves (which, I imagine, is most of them).