Hey kids ........ rock-n roll, Rock On!
High schoolers in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis, St. Paul) Public School system are staging a walkout today to protest the Iraq war and the presence of military recruiters at their high schools. Over 1000 students have committed to the walkout and it's got some adults in a tizzy:
Students who walk out of class will pay a price, said Bill Wacker, head of Trinity School at River Ridge, a private school in Bloomington.
"I don't know what disrupting their education and the education of others accomplishes," he said. "These are complex issues. I really hope that, in class, students learn how to think and make decisions."
Others are lovin it:
Young war protesters divide an older generation
Polly Mann, Minnesota's first director of Women Against Military Madness and a war protester since World War II, says teens are now forced to contemplate war while in high school because "military recruiters are everywhere."
Protesting also may help educate the parents of high school students, said Ken Tilsen, 78, a retired St. Paul lawyer who built a prominent law practice defending war protesters and power-line opponents.
They picked today Nov 2nd, the 1 year anniversary of the election, to drive home their point. Here's more coverage from the Pulse.
Zimmermann said the present-day "King George has engaged in a war of aggression to steal the wealth of the Iraqi people. My heart-felt thanks go to the young people of Minneapolis and the Twin Cities for having the courage to engage in this action, to speak truth to power." He spoke of how local problems, for example the asthma epidemic and the shortage of livable wage jobs, are connected to global issues such as the war in Iraq and our dependence on imported foreign oil.
Wow. High school military protesters. Way cool. I hope this catches on across the country. When I graduated from a Minnesota high school in 1977, I didn't have to even register at the post office because our country was still illin' from Vietnam.
"The times they are a changin" - Bob (Minnesotan) Dylan