Dept. of Scary Times for Teachers

So geography teacher Jay Bennish gets recorded by some kid in his class pointing out the eerie similarities between some of Hitler's policies, and Fearless Leader Geo. "Dubya" Bush.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3560566

I don't know what is scarier: the fact that, teaching in Dubya's backyard, I am about to compare the rhetorical elements of Bush's post 9-11 speech to the rhetorical elements of Bin Laden's post 9-11 speech; or the fact that if you type "bush hitler colorado teacher" in Google, the first seven web sites offered are conservative blogs that make the knee-jerk reaction to the Mohammed caricature look like well reasoned assertions.

Let's face a few facts here:

1. If you want to study propaganda in college and your course doesn't cover the well-oiled Nazi propaganda machine that was Hitler's Germany, you need to find a better course, or a better college. That is not to say that anyone, ANYONE, should buy into their crap; rather, through well-placed words and images, Hitler's people were able, essentially, to bend an otherwise rational nation of individuals to their evil will. That's the power of rhetoric, and why we should study it.
2. Yes, there is a time and a place for such comparisons as Mr. Bennish's remarks, and a high school geography class may not have been the best venue. And yes, Mr. Bennish is paid by the public's taxes and his contract falls under the school board's review. However, the responsible examination of issues is what makes for true teaching. I will continue to argue both sides in class, often taking the more reprehensible side, for the sake of education. If I can make my students think, I will make them think. Ultimately, that is what I'm paid to do.
3. There are some eerily similar rhetorical stances between the two regimes, specifically the "my way or the highway" attitude of this current administration. If I thought that Dubya might actually be able to learn something from the criticism, I might actually invite him to my class; my larger fear is that if I actually invited him here and he were to actually show up, I'd have to slow down the pace of my class so much that it would interfere with the eductional process.

So now I'm about to go continue with my Rhetoric of War unit, but I'm going to add the Denver Post's story to the lesson plan.