Requesting my school district to remove military recruitment because of US illegal Wars of Aggression: how will colleagues, district, and students/parents respond???

"If you don't speak boldly and clearly about lie-started and illegal Wars of Aggression, then you won't speak about anything important."                ~ just some history teacher

My wife prefers that I not make waves at work. 

But when the ongoing illegal US rogue state government makes constant waves of war killing millions, harming billions, and looting trillions, I have to safely test those waters to discover if the tide has finally turned. My personality, left alone, would be to “go Gandhi or Dr. King” for organized lobbying, public demonstrations, and legal challenges. That said, because I listen to my wife (and she is right 99% of the time), I’ll limit my role as a contributing scholar and facilitator of communication regarding the following emerging contest. 

I won’t advocate, but simply discover status of my community to the factual claim of current illegal US Wars of Aggression. I’m curious if they’re finally ready to recognize this Emperor’s New Clothes condition in the fall of 2019.

Aren’t you curious of this status also?

At our first faculty meeting this year at Hayward High School (HHS) with re-introduction of Professional Learning Committees (PLC), I spoke for the committee I lead: Solutions for HHS and Beyond! that if I could get just two colleagues to join me, I would request our district’s superintendent to stop military recruitment on our campuses because ongoing US wars are OBVIOUSLY illegal Wars of Aggression.

I currently have three colleagues reading my documentation of illegal US wars all started with lies known to be lies as they were told.

Assuming I’ll have at least two colleagues join my voice, this is the communication to our superintendent as a cover letter I’ll propose to those immediate partners, followed by my planned email to our entire staff to invite their participation:

Request to district superintendent to remove US military from all campuses

Dear Superintendent Wayne,

In the spirit of “constructive disruption” you commissioned for HUSD’s work this year through our Keynote inspirational address, we respectfully request HUSD cease military recruitment on our campuses because the US currently engages in illegal Wars of Aggression.

We find the published research documented by Mr. Herman as clear and convincing, and we find no rational “official explanation” US wars could possibly be legal. Mr. Herman is willing to address all questions and challenges. Please note that the linked research is comprehensive in content and context, so feel free to limit your reading to the first of the five sections for illegal wars. 

That said, the wars are started with lies known to be lies as they were told (part 2), and looting tens of trillions in tax dollars we could really use for public education (part 3). Those arguments, of course, make it easier for you to join us to take an initially controversial public stand.

Please either confirm the evidence as valid, or refute the evidence to show a reasonable explanation that current US wars are lawful. We fail to find any reasonable argument for lawful wars. If you can find one, we’d be very interested to see it because all we found were easily-proved lies.

As you may know, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. dedicated the last year of his life to end the Vietnam War, and redirect those massive funds to end poverty in the US. His plan was to occupy Washington, D.C. in the Summer of 1968 with a million people until that lie-started and illegal War of Aggression was ended. He was viciously attacked in the press for doing what we now know was right. Where will you stand with what Dr. King would ask of you now for today’s lie-started and Orwellian-unlawful Wars of Aggression? Our proposal is for the same purpose, and asking just a small exercise of our professional voices.

War law is crystal-clear in letter and intent: two treaties expressly forbid US armed attacks unless our nation is under armed attack by a foreign government (or imminent threat), or authorized by the UN Security Council. Of course, the two treaties requiring that limit (Kellogg-Briand and UN Charter) are taught in every high school World and US History class. The definition of a treaty under Article 6 of the US Constitution is "supreme Law of the Land," so when a US President signs with 2/3rds ratification of the Senate, US political and military leadership are Oath-bound to defend and protect the promised peace. 

We respectfully remind everyone that all of us signed an Oath to defend and protect the US Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, as a condition of our employment. We act in good-faith honor of this Oath, our academic professionalism to say and do something about the greatest cost connected to our constant struggle for school funding, and in ethical response for perhaps the single greatest human rescue mission in Earth history under renewed threat of a third world war with nuclear weapons capable of destroying all life on Earth. 

By the way, you still might want to look at the published research to fully fund public education you’ve so far declined to examine.

We assert that recognizing and refusing illegal Wars of Aggression is a basic application of a high school education, and required of us as professional educators responsible for the education and safety of the children at our schools. Refusing our children to be recruited for ongoing War Crimes is a professional duty to prevent an obvious and known harm to our children, not an option.

We hope such a basic and easy choice is clear to you.

Again: please either respond with your agreement to these factual claims with withdrawal of permission for US military to invade our campuses, or refutation of what we find as Emperor's New Clothes obvious facts of illegal wars we are all Oath-bound to refuse.

We apologize if this “constructive disruption” you asked from us is not initially welcomed. We want to help you win with us in this proposal that could, of course, spread to other districts to help end these illegal Wars of Aggression. 

We’ll share your responses with staff and the public. Personally, we don’t see any way you’ll be on the right side of history except by joining us that the US engages in illegal Wars of Aggression that HUSD must oppose in any recruitment of our students.

Perhaps this is like the historical choice to either support or oppose Dr. King for Civil Rights.

Perhaps we can all say Ending Wars of Aggression: Made in Hayward as part of our legacies.

Perhaps the best start is to thank us because you had no idea what war law is, that the US continuously violates it, and HUSD should respond appropriately for the education and safety of Hayward’s children in our care. 

We support your wisest choices.

Respectfully from Hayward High School teachers,

Carl Herman

x

y

z

etc.

Invitation to high school staff to participate

Dear Colleagues,

At our first faculty meeting, I informed you that Solutions for HHS and Beyond! PLC committee would request Superintendent Wayne to remove US military recruitment from HUSD because ongoing US armed attacks are illegal Wars of Aggression started with lies known to be false as they are told, if and only if, I could get at least two colleagues to join my voice. 

(x, y, z, etc.) are on board! This email is to update you, invite your participation, and also give you full opportunity to opt-out of further communications on this PLC should this not be of interest at this time.

Following is the email we’ll send to Superintendent Wayne in two weeks (date) after giving you, dear colleagues, sufficient time to review the compilation of published documentation proving lie-started illegal Wars of Aggression. If this project is of interest to add your voice, please let me know. If you’d like to follow the progress, I’ll include you automatically. If you’d like to not follow progress, please respond to this email and your wish is my command for that :)

Please know the documentation is comprehensive in content and context; if you’d just like the part on illegal US Wars of Aggression, read part one in the contents. For the proven and known lies selling these illegal war-murders, see part two. For documented looting in the tens of trillions admitted by the Department of Defense (they say they “lost” $21 trillion) that we could really use for public education, see part three. English and Social Science teachers might appreciate the analogies in part four to breakthrough the Emperor’s New Clothes propaganda, and only the bold should read part five: these .01% War Criminals must be arrested as the legal remedy to stop apparent crimes in progress of the most dangerous, damaging, and costly kind that again escalate into nuclear WW3 threats.

As you may know, my background includes helping to craft and deliver over 300 policy briefs to Members of Congress for US domestic and foreign policy to end poverty that led to two UN summits for heads of state. I can brief any of you on this topic of illegal wars in under ten minutes at your request before school, lunch, after school, committee time, or my prep (3rd).

Please let me know if you’d like to add your name, would like to converse with me for questions or concerns, or would like to opt-out for this PLC’s actions and opportunities.

Peace, literal peace,

Carl

How will colleagues, district, students/parents react???

The three teachers reading the documentation might not read, understand, and/or agree to participate. The history of my outreaches to colleagues at Hayward High School over the last four years I’ve been here:

• 2015-2016 and 2016-2017: absolutely quiet because school districts in California can “non re-elect” (fire) teachers in the first two years without cause. Such actions as I now take caused my non re-election at three previous public schools and one charter school despite breakthrough learning of students and my credentials as Berkeley and Harvard-educated National Board Certified Teacher and Coach of NBCT Candidates (the highest national honor for teaching), being honored by two Los Angeles Mayors as among the best few teachers in Central L.A. (population of ~20,000 teachers), having credentials in two subject fields (math and social science) with published research by The Claremont Colleges, and a background of applying my education to help save ~300 million lives from poverty-relieving policies from 18 years of being among the leaders of RESULTS. That said, I did invite our principal and mathematics department chair to upgrade the teaching and learning of Algebra 1, as our school and district have a 50% failure rate for that required class to graduate compared to my failure rate currently of ~1% on peer-reviewed and approved tests with district grading percentages. Both colleagues declined, and continued to decline similar proposals up to the present.
• 2017-2018, 2018-2019: I emailed teaching colleagues of World History, US History, US Government, and Economics three or four times if they had interest in the following topics to learn about, discuss, or even have me present to classes this published research (I received no replies to accept, decline, or even ask questions):
• Ending poverty (my experiences up to two UN summits for heads of state).
• Lie-started and illegal US Wars of Aggression.
• Economic upgrades worth ~$1,000,000 per US household that would fully fund public education and all infrastructure.
• The King Family civil trial proving the US government guilty of assassinating Martin.

In the Spring of 2018 I lobbied my school district for official examination and exploration of the published research of public banking and monetary reform to fully fund education. All the following declined to read or be briefed, despite their desperate work to get funding with full knowledge of the escalating austerity problems and their own time to consider solutions:

• The same superintendent I’m inviting now. He wrote that he wouldn’t be briefed but that I should invite the Alameda County Office of Education to examine.
• The Alameda County Office of Education, despite their rhetoric, passed my invitation onto several people, then stopped replying to my emails and phone messages.
• The district Assistant Superintendent of Finance expressed great interest at first, then stopped replying to emails after asking to wait for Summer when he had “more time” to consider this information.
• School district teachers union leadership declined to be briefed, despite their increasing attention to emergency funding scenarios. They asked that I go to the California Teachers’ Association (CTA).
• I had addressed CTA ten years ago on the same issue, and received the same response. Despite their stated work to fully fund education, they claimed they had nobody at CTA to evaluate my invitation to discuss fully funding education!

Also in the Spring of 2018 after I began this lobbying, the school district initiated work to fire me for “racist and inappropriate sexual conduct” that their “official investigation” wrote stunning lies that our union’s attorney and I looked forward to confront in court. The district ended-up placing me on paid leave to “evaluate the evidence” they extended into the first two weeks of the next school year that they later declined to pursue. So, I might find similar opposition to this proposal of the superintendent address illegal US Wars of Aggression.

Therefore and in summary, I’m aware that my efforts might be throwing pearls before swine, with the only reasonable outcome I can expect is to be trampled. Because the stakes are so high of millions killed, billions harmed, and trillions looted, I feel I must safely test these waters (as safely as possible).

I’ll write updates :)