I am a native of Stockton, California

[Jack Rabbit]

EDITED for typing

I am a native of Stockton, California and I am outraged to learn that in the city of my birth a public school has been named for a notorious war criminal and violator of human rights and constitutional civil liberties.

I hope the city fathers remove this blight soon.

[flyarm]

1. call them everyone from calif call them and scream bloody murder! n/t

[fooj]

2. Check out this thread...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2298373&mesg_id=2298373

[bryant69]

3. I grew up in the birthplace of Richard Nixon

Sometimes there ain't no justice.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[rhiannon55]

4. If I was a young parent in that school district

I'd have to homeschool. No way could I ever let a child of mine attend a school with that horrible name. :thumbsdown:

[Lisa]

5. I feel sorry for those kids! I bet they'll be taunted mercilessly ...

Children are quite ingenious when it comes to focusing on an awkward or inappropriate name (whether it's your own name, or the place where you were born) -- and my guess is that the kids attending the other area schools will be snickering at the "loser school".

p.s. after it came out that an 1800s judge in my region had hanged some Indians for crimes they didn't commit, his name was quietly taken off schools and a university law library ...

[Xithras]

6. That's Pombo's district.

R....E....D

Stockton is the same city that is currently planning a naval war museum with a WWII battleship as its centerpiece to anchor the foot of downtown, and also the same city currently engaged in a war with the state over their plans to dredge and destroy much of the Delta to widen their shipping lanes. I wouldn't count on the "city fathers" to do much of anything about this...they LIKE Bush in that area.

I only live about 20 minutes south of Stockton, and am very well versed in the politics of this region. This is SUV hell, Pro Bush/War/Troops rallies happen practically every weekend somewhere in the valley, the districts are gerrymandered to keep Democrats out, and anti-war stickers on your car will get it keyed. A recent speech by Micheal Newdow at a local university spawned dozens of letters to the editors in the various local papers where people advocated everything from expelling him from the country to executing him as a traitor.

Color me NOT SUPRISED that they named a school after *. If anything, I'm shocked that it took this long.

[Jack Rabbit]

7. Normally, the person for whom the school is named is held up as a model

I attended Daniel Webster Junior High School in Stockton. We did things to celebrate the life and times of Daniel Webster. Had we not moved out of town when I was 15, I would have attended Stagg High School, named for a famous football coach who, in his twilight years, coached the College of the Pacific team in Stockton; he died in a rest home a few blocks from my house at age of 102. I remember the bash the town put on for his 100th birthday. The man was dedicated to physical fitness and very good at what he did. He was also innovative. Along with Knute Rockne at Notre Dame, Amos Alonzo Stagg. when coaching at the University of Chicago, was instrumental at introducing the forward pass. Stagg also made modifications to the punt; his method of punting is universally used today.

How does one hold up Bush as a role model? He plunged the country into an unnecessary war with a pack of lies and deceptions. Having eliminated all the stated reasons for the war against Iraq as false, we are pretty much left with surmising that the war was waged to provide war profit opportunities for his campaign contributors. For this, he has sacrificed the lives of nearly 3000 American servicemen and tens of thousands of Iraqis. the invasion and occupation of Iraq is an imperialist war, a war aggression. Bush is not a war president. He is a mass murderer and a colonial pirate.

He claims Iraq is part of the central front in the war on terror, yet he insists on staying the course that isn't working. Why doesn't he take steps that might actually win in Iraq (if that is indeed possible)? Because that would require him to impose a draft and -- OMG! -- raise taxes.

He began his tenure in office after a disputed election that he actually lost and that after the illegal purging of voter rolls in a key state of likely opposition voters and won re-election by having his allies in at least two key states engage in systematic disenfranchisement of opposition voters through the unequal supplying of polling stations and outright intimidation. The institution of kangaroo courts that deny the accused any semblance of due process or legal rights is an abomination.

He has willfully violated the Fourth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments, the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Charter, which prohibits wars of aggression.

There is no way that this man is a role model for children. He is a liar, a thief and a mass murderer. He is a tyrant who stands in oppositions to the very principals on which was founded.

He is undeserving of the slightest honor.