Our protests yesterday failed. My school district kept the flags at half-mast, and they're still that way, on Trump's orders, to honor the fascist Charlie Kirk.
At the end of the day, our superintendent emailed us to thank us for our numerous heartfelt emails to him about our opposition to following this order, and our deep commitment to keeping our students safe, while arguing that he had no control over the matter because a presidential mandate about the flag was the law of the land and all public schools were required to obey.
Sound a bit like the discredited Nuremberg defense?
One of the most significant outcomes of the Nuremberg trials was the now internationally-recognized responsibility to defy illegal or immoral orders. The Ministries Trials (within the Nuremberg Trials) found that bureaucrats, such as school officials, could also be found culpable.
The primary basis for the ruling is that adherence to it is one of the most effective ways to prevent governments from committing crimes against their citizenry. It actually worked, to some extent, during the first Trump presidency, when numerous cabinet members refused to implement illegal orders. There supposedly have been some military officers who've refused to participate in Trump's recent National Guard deployments, as well. And, of course, some institutions have refused to comply, like Harvard. While those that have complied, like Columbia, have often seen continued harassment.
It's disheartening and disgusting to see so many individuals and institutions behaving like "good Germans," cracking at the slightest threat, gutless and terrified to resist and fight back, even to the point where they're throwing their own constituents under the bus.
I mean, if a school district is willing to honor a man who said that school shooting deaths were acceptable to protect our 2nd amendment rights, or that LGBTQ people should be stoned to death; who literally published a hit list for teachers, many of whom received death threats as a result; then I certainly don't trust they'll do a thing when Trump orders them to give up the names and personal records of LGBTQ, immigrant, leftist or Palestinian students and staff. Or when he orders flags to be flown at half-staff on April 20.
#trump #charliekirk #flags #fascism
