By Luke Thomas
October 4, 2008
Endorsed by the Republican Party, the campaign to elect Rachel Norton to the San Francisco School Board joined forces with the pro-war ticket of Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin during a street fair in Portola, September 28, to support Proposition V (Pro-JROTC policy statement) on the November ballot.
Luke Thomas
Luke Thomas is a former software developer and computer consultant who proudly hails from London, England. In 2001, Thomas took a yearlong sabbatical to travel and develop a photographic portfolio. Upon his return to the US, Thomas studied photojournalism to pursue a career in journalism. In 2004, Thomas worked for several neighborhood newspapers in San Francisco before accepting a partnership agreement with the SanFranciscoSentinel.com, a news website formerly covering local, state and national politics. In September 2006, Thomas launched FogCityJournal.com. The BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, New York Times, Der Spiegel, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Bay Guardian and the San Francisco Weekly, among other publications and news outlets, have published his work. Thomas is a member of the Freelance Unit of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, TNG-CWA Local 39521 and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Follow Me:
The Hunger Site
October 18, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Well Harry, I’d say being a parent of a kid with special needs is tougher than being a special ed teacher … but my Grandma would say “get off the cross” if I continue to harp on about it. And I seriously don’t want any insipid comparisons to Sarah Palin… she’s been a special needs Mom for about 10 seconds and I doubt she’ll ever have the problems a parent of a child with special needs in SFUSD has.
Glad you were a special ed teacher, though, there really needs to be some people on the BOE that know about special ed.
I agree with you about ROTC. Yoru NERT plan sounds remarkably similar to Sandy Fewer’s.
And not all California wines are the same, are they?
October 10, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Hey Moggything,
Naw. I like Norton’s zeal with special ed. I was a special ed teacher and nothing’s tougher. I’m also a vet and am proud of it. I favor ROTC but installing it before kids are 18 is predatory. I’ve outlined a more appropriate and efficacious 4 year program that starts with NERT, rolls into EMT certification in year 2, right on into a driver’s license and SFFD training in third year and working with SFPD and a revived Urban Pioneers in senior year. They can still have uniforms and their skills will be more useful and can translate into work in City’s Public Safety sector.
And, what the hell you got against California wine?
h.
October 9, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Let’s see, using that insipid logic — do you think all members of the Green Party should also reject any support from Democrats in San Francisco?
Have another drink, h. brown.
October 5, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Rachel,
You should most definitely come out right here on Fog City Journal and announce that you are rejecting any support at all from the Republican Party. Are you going to do that?
h. brown
October 5, 2008 at 10:56 am
Hey Luke – Nice! Make sure you get a photo of my sign on the Alice B. Toklas table at the Castro St. Fair today. You know, for balance. I don’t know if the SF Democratic Party, United Educators of SF, SF for Democracy, Noe Valley Democratic Club and other major Democratic organizations will have tables there, but if so they’ll be promoting my campaign as well, since I’ve also received their endorsements. Have a great day!
October 5, 2008 at 7:35 am
Number one: There are no stats on how many local kids go from JROTC into the military. Nationally, it’s 40-50%. The superintendent of the SF schools said that they don’t do any tracking of local youth. So pro-JROTC folks lie when they say that they know how many local kids go into the military.
Number two: The military is homophobic. JROTC kids who go on to a military career and who are gay cannot be out. They are denied benefits that straight kids get. Instructors in the JROTC program cannot be out. That’s one of the reasons the school board voted to phase it out. That’s also why every major queer leader in SF is opposed to JROTC!
Number three: Any school board member who supports JROTC is supporting homophobia. He or she can dance around it with all sorts of fancy steps, but at the end of the day, to support a military recruitment program that penalizes queers who go beyond the safe confines of the local JROTC and instructors who might want to be out is homophobic! As a queer man who has been an activist in the movement since 1971, I am appalled to think that in SF in 2008 people don’t get the way homophobia works. If queer kids can be out in JROTC but not if he or she continues with a military career, and if instructors can’t be out, then that’s homophobia.
Number four: JROTC is a military recruitment program. It was set up to be that, it continues to be that, and nothing the good “liberals” in the JROTC program in SF can do to change that. The reality is that it is a recruitment effort to get kids onto the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq so that they can kill and be killed.
Number five: The Republican Party supports JROTC! That should say enough. This is the party that has spent the past 40 years attacking gay rights on every front! Why would I as a gay man trust any Republican? Even the Log Cabin folks! The Democrats may not be waving the rainbow flag all the time, but at least they’ve given us gay rights measures throughout the country and here in SF have supported the queer community a whole lot. The Democratic Party is solidly against JROTC for the same reason I am: The military should not be in our schools recruiting 14-year-olds, and it’s a program of a homophobic military.
No on V!
October 4, 2008 at 10:36 pm
A non-partisan race? That’s a good one. Though the school board candidates are not limited by party affiliation, non-partisan they are not.
Also, did you know JROTC screens candidates for homosexuality, that it “help(s) motivate young Americans toward military service?”
Voters’ opinions of JROTC, whether you like it or not, have been colored by this administration’s willful deception over “weapons of mass-destruction,” resulting in the deaths of over 4,000, mostly young Americans, not to mention the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans.
October 4, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Sometimes I don’t understand these arguments. If kids and their parents want this they should just enroll them in a military school not a public school. i am sure they could find funding for scholarships.
October 4, 2008 at 9:08 pm
cheap shot, luke. but then again your website is just a PR machine for the left, reprinting press releases verbatim. What you don’t know about JROTC and this country is unbelievable.
also I don’t see rachel in the picture. I only see her sign for a non partisan race. cheap shot, luke, cheap shot!
October 4, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Howard, actually I labeled the presidential ticket of McCain and Palin as pro-war.
Readers may draw their own conclusions as to how impressionable JROTC graduates may end up losing their lives for a failed NeoCon doctrine and wars based on Republican lies, but in my opinion this is definitely not the time to be supporting JROTC in our schools.
October 4, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Luke,
Labeling supporters of the JROTC pro-war is absurd. We are not pro-war. We are pro-defense and pro-keeping America safe from terrorists.
JROTC in San Francisco teaches leadership skills from professionals who would not otherwise be available to the students, mostly minorities. A lot are from single parent families. Very few actually go into the military. But, most go to college.
Howard Epstein
Chairman
S.F. Republican Party