Jay Bennish's Father Reports Death Threats, FoxNews "McCarthyism"

Oh, where does one begin?

Obviously any cretin/coward/criminal who makes death-threats should be tossed in jail. Especially for making death-threats against someone's family. I'm not sure why that's worse -- it's not as if you have any right to make a death-threat against someone you disagree with, or even who is guilty of malfeasance and lefty indoctrination -- but it just is. It's not as if anyone has a right to threaten Jay Bennish's life, but to further threaten his family... well, that's even worse.

That said:

Bennish's father, John Bennish of Beverly Hills, Mich., told The Detroit News in Wednesday's editions that people have called his house threatening to kill him or his family. He said he did not report the threats to police.

"This has been totally lopsided and one-sided," Bennish's father said of the news coverage of his son's lecture. He said the Fox News Channel's coverage "reminds me of McCarthyism. And they're supposed to be fair and balanced?"

Oh, everything reminds these people of McCarthyism. The clerk at Subway forgetting to punch their frequent-buyer's card reminds them of McCarthyism. A Friendly's Fribble that's a little on the thin and over-frothed side reminds the of McCarthyism. Ventriloquist doll Charlie McCarthy reminds them of McCarthyism, as does ventriloquist doll Jenny McCarthy.

It's called reporting, dude. Get over it.

...

Bennish was in New York City on Tuesday morning for a national television interview.

"My job as a teacher is to challenge students to think critically about issues that are affecting our world and our society," he said on NBC's "Today Show."

Your job as a geography teacher is to tell them that Sierre Leone has some mountains in it.

Bennish said he thinks that his lecture was being presented unfairly. Bennish said that most people aren't listening to the entire 20-minute recording and it wasn't even half of what he said to students that day.

"This is 20 minutes out of a 50-minute class. The rest of the class provides the balance," he told NBC's Matt Lauer.

Lie. There was a chance to "provide balance" in the snippet we heard. He was challenged as to claim of equivalency between the US government and Hamas/Al Qaeda. He said "That's a good point," but then launched into a defense of his claims of moral equivalency, and argued Israel was a terrorist state for good measure.

If there's balance at all in his rant, we should have heard it there. But we didn't.

...

"My job as a social studies teacher is to argue alternative perspectives and viewpoints so that students are aware of those point of views. They do not necessarily reflect my own views. They are simply thrown out there to encourage critical thought," he told "Today."

He provides no "alternative perpsective" to his own perspective. Like other leftists, he believes the "alternative perspective" is already well-provided by the "manufactured consent" in favor of capitalism and jingoism omnipresent in our fascist society, so it is his job to present one single "alternative perspective" to this unbiquitous and inescapable military-industrial-capitalist worldview.

As for these views "not necessarily" being his own -- give me a break. I can play devil's advocate, but I usually don't rant with frothy emotionalism when doing so.

He said he was simply playing devil's advocate, making comparisons that have been made around the country and around the world so that his students would be aware of those perspectives and judge it for themselves.

Lie.

If he was doing nothing wrong, why does he have to lie so transparently about it?

Integrity is doing the same thing when you're not being watched as when you're being watched. Obviously Mr. Bennish lacks integrity.

On the 20-minute recording, made by sophomore Sean Allen, Bennish is heard saying, "Who is probably the most single violent nation on earth? The United States of America."

"'It is our duty as Americans to use the military to go out into the world and make the world like us.' Sounds a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler used to say -- 'We're the only ones who are right, everyone else is backward and our job is to conquer the world,'" Bennish told his students.

On the tape, he is heard telling his students that they don't have to agree with him.

Of course they don't have to. Who ever announces, "You must agree with me"? But every word he utters in is furtherance of his radical anti-American worldview.

I suppose he'd like credit because he allowed the United States is only probably "the most single most violent nation on earth."

Israel, after all, may edge us out. Our scores or equal, but Israel just may win the technical-merit tiebreaker.
Now, here's bias.

Meanwhile, the student who recorded the lecture said he's received threats of physical violence since coming forward. Allen said he has been called a "snitch" and a "coward" for releasing the audio recording to the media. Allen said he will transfer to a different school.

Notice this kid is getting threats of violence but it's not in the headline, and it's only mentioned at the end of the piece. Bennish is on PAID leave, and almost certainly will not be fired. This kid has to transfer to a different school.

Can you guess where the reporter's sympathies might lie? Has he given the game away with the prominence with which he reports threats against Bennish and relatively disinterest in the threats against Allen?

"I don't believe he should be fired. I believe, yes, there should be some sort of consequence for what he's doing. He should be reprimanded but I believe that he's knowledgeable in geography, I mean, he knows what he's talking about -- as long as he just teach the curriculum," Allen said.

I agree with him. I actually don't think he should be fired -- teachers have done far worse without being fired. He should just be strongly cautioned that he is not a political leader at a union hall, and that, last time I checked, "geography" has to do with rivers and mountains and such.

If the guy wants to teach history or current events or whatnot, he should get the accreditation necessary and then land that actual job.

And even if he does, he should stop trying to indoctrinate impressionable minds with one-sided neomarxist cant.

There are some teachers who really do "challenge the way you think" by simply providing devil's advocate hypotheticals and questions. And then there are the committed ideologues. They are not difficult to tell from one another. The first sort of teacher-- well, it is difficult to precisely state what his position might be, because whatever a student says, he questions it, and forces the student to defend his assumptions and claims.

Jay Bennish doesn't do that. The only people questioned/argued with in his class are those who disagree with him. The kids who answer his questions "in the right way" -- agreeing that Bush is like Hitler, or that America is the most violent nation on earth (probably) -- they receive no questioning or debate.

Teachers, parents and administrators responsible for school policies are eagerly awaiting the school district's decision. But many say that could only be the beginning because the discussions that have come forward could have major implications on future education.

I certainly hope so.

I'll say it-- I hate most teachers, especially high school teachers. I'm sorry, I know there are good ones (and I've had some great ones-- truly great), but a lot of them are mediocre intellects -- sub-mediocre, actually -- who are just thrilled to be put in front of one of the few possible collections of human beings in the world who know less than they do.

If he wants to preach politics to a bunch of know-nothing retards, shit, he should just start a blog.

posted by Ace at 03:41 PM

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