We're
supposed to believe that the perpetrators of 9/11 hated us for our
freedom and goodness. In fact, that crime was blowback for decades of US
intervention in the Middle East. And the last thing we needed was the
government's response: more wars, a stepped-up police and surveillance
state, and drones.
Many parents check their children's school work to make sure they're getting good grades, but how often to you check the content of those lessons? One mother of a child in Flour Bluff ISD says when she did, she was shocked that lesson taught her son to blame the United States for the 9/11 attacks.
Kara Sands posted the test on her facebook page and it began to spread like wildfire. The test covers content watched on a video in class. What bothered her most is question #3 on the test. It asks why the U.S. may be a target for terrorism. Her son chose the correct answer - 'decisions we made in the United States that negatively impact people elsewhere.'
"I'm not going to justify radical terrorists by saying we did anything to deserve that, over 3,000 people died," Sands said. She contacted her son's principal and teacher, both met with her and contacted the video's distributor, Safari Montage.
Representatives say they stand behind the video, but have already changed the corresponding quiz that may have caused confusion.
Sands tells us the quiz opened her eyes to the content in lessons taught at the school. Her biggest concern is curriculum called CSCOPE.
One worksheet on the Bill of Rights names food and medicine as rights, not personal responsibility. "He got marked wrong, because it is, it is our responsibility for shelter, its our responsibility for food for medicine, its not the government's responsibility," Sand said.
Flour Bluff officials say Sands is the only parent to complain about the test specifically, but her post on facebook now has 1,662 likes.
Several parents plan to meet next week and Sands says school board members Shirley Thornton and Wade Chapman have requested the concerns be brought up in the next school board meeting. The agenda for the March 28th meeting is not yet posted to confirm the item.
Sands says parents need to get involved.
"When I teach my children that you have to work hard and you have to earn a living and they go to school and learn something different I absolutely take issue with that," Sands said.
On June 14, the Missouri Right to Life Political Action Committeeendorsed MD Rabbi Alam in the Democratic primary for Secretary of State to be held on August 7. The letter states that it "takes great care in choosing candidates to support in elections." The organization appears to have missed the fact that Alam has close ties to Islamist groups and appears to have made a posting on an Internet forum strongly suggesting that 9/11 was a Jewish conspiracy.
On February 19, 2009, MD Rabbi Alam appears to have made a post on a Topix.com discussion forum that asks, "Was 9/11 a conspiracy?" The post links to a 9/11 conspiracy video titled Loose Change and then states:
"Now, I can say this much which is a big yes from my own understanding and own judgement. But there is always other side of the coin.
Few question to my readers,
Why 9/11 was a official holidy for all jewish people worked in the the WTC?
Who can tell me how many of the Jewish people died on the 9/11 tragedy?
Finally, who can tell me why there was a closed-end security and dog squad was implaced at the lower level of the WTC just a block before the 9/11?
What do you really think?"
The author of the post is listed as MD Rabbi Alam, is located in Kansas City and has a photo of Alam in his army uniform.
Alam's personal YouTube channel, which has videos of him rehearsing various speeches (this one is, by far, my favorite). One speech was uploaded on February 1, 2010 and it is prepared for a February 7 event with American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) where he declares his opposition to the War on Terror. He decries how foreigners have been treated since 9/11, giving the invasion of Iraq as an example. He says the "catastrophic War on Terror is nothing but a horror suffering for us as an immigrant." A second example he provides is the conviction of Dr. Sami al-Arian, who is in jail for his involvement with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group. Alam says he was "falsely accused and victimized by the War on Terror."
His weird take on the Constitution is Jacksonian and I do not mean that in a complimentary manner. Republican Congressman Ron Paul envisions a world in which the USA is neutered as she was in the 1990s.
He talks as if the last 65 years without a major European war are not worth the sacrifices our nation has made over the years in standing up to communism and in standing up for democracy in Europe and elsewhere.
But even if I agreed with him, I would think of Ron Paul as a despicable human being because of this, which he said to supporters, according to CBS: “Just think of what happened after 9/11. Immediately before there was any assessment there was glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq.”
He is lucky we outlawed dueling, because I am pretty sure that given the opportunity, Dick Cheney would indeed issue such a challenge.
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul said Thursday evening that Bush administration officials were gleeful after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks because it gave them a pretext to invade Iraq.
"Just think of what happened after 9/11. Immediately before there was any assessment there was glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq," the Texas Republican told a group of mostly young backers in Iowa. He went on to suggest officials are now setting the stage for an invasion of Iran.
Paul, who was tied for second in this week's CBS News/New York Times poll of likely Iowa caucus-goers, is making a strong push in the Hawkeye state in hopes of scoring an upset victory in the first-in-the-nation January 3 caucuses. Paul volunteers have been working to convince Paul's mostly young supporters - many of whom will be on holiday break from college when the caucuses take place - to be sure to make it to their caucus site.
Paul's libertarian views - on the foreign policy front, he wants to dramatically reduce the U.S. military presence abroad and end all foreign aid - put him at odds with many Republican voters. A poll from Gallup this week found that 62 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning independent voters see Paul as an unacceptable nominee.
But if no candidate can consolidate support in Iowa, Paul could emerge victorious in the caucuses even if he gets less than 30 percent support. Paul's supporters tend to be more passionate about their candidate than the backers of many of his rivals, which could give him an advantage if bad weather discourages less-motivated Iowans from getting to their caucus site on January 3.
In response to Paul's comments Thursday evening, former Bush administration spokesman Ari Fleisher Tweeted: "The man is nuts."
On "Face the Nation" last month, Paul said that while the average American didn't cause the Sept. 11 attacks, " if you have a flawed policy it may influence it."
"I think there's an influence and that's exactly what the 9/11 commission said that's what the DOD has said and that's also what the CIA has said and that's what a lot of researchers have said," said Paul. "...our policies definitely had an influence and you talk to the people who committed it and those individuals who would like to do us harm. They say yes we don't like American bombs to be falling on our country and we don't like the intervention that we do in their nation so to deny this I think is very dangerous. But to argue the case that they want to do us harm because we're free and prosperous is very dangerous notion because it's not true."
He added: "So I'm saying policies have an effect but that's a far cry from blaming America. I mean in America, you're supposed to be able to criticize your own government without saying you're un-American."
