Does the JROTC have anything to do with the epidemic of "school shootings" in America?

Of course, it does ... but you won't see the MSM going anywhere near that issue leave alone arriving at that conclusion because that would be so unpatriotic, right?  Who gives a damn if  the shootings continue ... as long as Americans can boast about how patriotic they are and continue to be blind  to thousands of murders at home and millions abroad.... all is dandy and good.

#cdnpoli #tcot #TOpoli As at Feb 14 when this was aired, there were already 18 school shootings in good old USA.  Wonder how many more since that date. When will school shootings be labelled "epidemic" https://t.co/aGZxEyTkpz

— MariaS Nunes (@Dodocanspell) March 7, 2018

Janine Jackson at Fair.org
‘They Put Lethal Weapons Into the Hands of 13-Year-Olds’

CounterSpin interview with Pat Elder on school militarization

Janine Jackson: In the wake of lethal gun violence like that in Parkland, Florida, we talk about the specific details of this shooting and this killer, and we talk about the US culture of violence: imperialist, domestic, statutory. Sometimes overlooked are what you might call the “bridges” between these things.

What are some of the mechanisms that convey ideas, about the rightness of violence and the value of weapons, to individuals like the 19-year-old who killed 14 of his former classmates, two staff members and a teacher? The young man was a member of the Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program at the high school before he was expelled. He was wearing his JROTC shirt when he carried out the attack. Our guest says, whatever the role here, the presence of military recruiters in high schools around the country calls out for challenge.

Pat Elder is director of the National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy, which resists the militarization of schools, and author of Military Recruiting in the United States. He joins us now by phone from Maryland. Welcome to CounterSpin, Pat Elder.

Pat Elder: Thank you so much.

JJ: JROTC is all around the country. They were in my high school, in Maryland. They had a table set up in the lobby, as I recall. But for those who don’t know about them, what is this group, and how do they operate in schools?

PE: The JROTC program is part of the Army’s command structure. It’s part of the cadet command, which is the lowest item in the command structure.

Now, the JROTC program is two-dimensional, as I see it. One, it stresses the physical aspect of being a soldier. And in that capacity, they put lethal weapons into the hands of 13-year-old 9th graders.

But there’s also a much less studied and understood dimension, and that has to do with the ideology that is taught by the program. And so each of the four branches has its own cadet command structure. The Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Marines, each have four years of textbooks that the students learn from. And each of the states have accommodated the JROTC program by allowing students to substitute core curricular items—for instance, in Florida, students can substitute biology, physical science, physical education and art—if they want to take the JROTC program.

JJ: What’s some of this ideology that you’re talking about?
JROTC: You the People

From Army JROTC: Leadership Education and Training (LET 2)

PE: You have to read it to get a firm understanding of it, and it’s easy enough to do: simply google “Army JROTC textbook,” and you’ll pull up a high school in Alabama or Minnesota, and they’ll have links to, in this case, the Army’s JROTC textbooks.

So just to give you a little idea, as government instruction is concerned, the unit on civics is entitled, “You the People.” Now I learned it, in Maryland, as “We the People.” Children are taught to respect authority, and they are taught to get in line, and they are taught to not question authority; that’s why they call it “You the People.” That’s civics. Keep in mind that the state of Florida, or other states, I should say, actually allow students to substitute JROTC for civics. ......