From Cheerleader to Enemy of the State

Click here to access article which is an excerpt from a book Radical Peace: Refusing War by William Hathaway posted on World News Trust.

The excerpt gives us an idea of what happens to teachers if they try to teach real facts:

The long, flouncy curls from Judy Davis's cheerleader days are gone. Her straight blonde hair is now cut short. Large blue eyes stand out in a face pale without makeup. Her soft Southern drawl has an undertone of determination. "It's taken me awhile, but now I'm glad to be considered an 'unsuitable influence.' That was how the school board justified my firing. That and 'deviating from the curriculum.' It's like they were implying I was a deviant. And according to their norms, I am."

The 29-year-old was fired for teaching her high school students how U.S. foreign policy has provoked terrorism. This struggle with her school board turned her from a Republican into a revolutionary for peace.

He elicits a number of interesting views from her about the future and activism such as this:

"What do you see happening?" I asked her.

"Guerrilla warfare will gradually defeat the empire overseas, prevent it from expanding. So it'll turn inward and start squeezing its own people more. Since it's inherently unjust, that's the only way it can maintain itself. When we revolt against that, it'll turn fascist. In a couple of generations we'll overthrow the fascism. And then we'll build ... who knows? That's a long ways away, and we have a lot to do until then."

At one point she makes the following statement:

"The founding fathers were just rich men looking after their own interests. Just like our current leaders are. We need to knock these patriarchs off their pedestals.

"They've become masters at recruiting women to serve their interests. Most women politicians are offering us the same old system dressed up in a new outfit, just patriarchy with perfume."

I asked her how she thinks we should oppose patriarchy.

Unfortunately, Hathaway's response seems to frame the incident and the general problem of capitalist ruling class control of education as a cultural problem (together with the sub-headline "Radical Peace is a collection of reports from antiwar activists, the true stories of their efforts to change our warrior culture")--one of patriarchy, and diverts the discussion into her observations about patriarchy.

But, it's clear to me that she doesn't see it that way--women are equally susceptible of supporting capitalism as are men. Patriarchy is just an additional problem that women have to deal with.