I think a certain film I might have seen once could have been based on this story:
In 1987, when I was a sixth-grade pupil at Hope Valley Elementary School in Durham, North Carolina, our social studies teacher asked us a question: What do you hate most about our school?
...
At the age of 11, we had begun learning about politics and had watched, if memory serves, a documentary about Solidarity in Poland. On their example, we wrote down all of our gripes and signed our names, put it in an envelope and addressed it to the principal. Then we got out cardboard and markers: “Down with dodgeball!” “Fix the lights!” “Improve the food!” That afternoon, when the bell rang after recess, we didn’t return to our classroom. Instead, we got out our signs and began marching in circles around the flagpole. Twenty minutes later, an exasperated secretary came out to tell us that, if we would only go back to class, the principal would be happy to meet with us in the morning to discuss our demands.
...
The morning after our silly little protest, we arrived at our classroom to find the principal and all of his assistants arrayed by the blackboard, our teacher looking stonily bereft at her desk, the school security guard towering over her, his firm hand on her shoulder. Mrs. Cohen, we were told, was to be dismissed immediately. The student council would be disbanded. All students who had taken part in the demonstration would be put on detention for the rest of the year, and investigation would be undertaken to discover the ring leaders. The punishment for the latter would be revealed in due course.
We were inconsolable. Mrs. Cohen was our favorite teacher; what would happen to her? And as sixth graders, we had only just earned the right to be elected to student council; now, that was meaningless. The prospect of detention seemed to pale in comparison to the prospect of our parents’ anger when they found out how badly we had transgressed.
OK, what film does this remind you of?
For me it was a film called Dead Poets' Society.
And, sure enough, 1989, when that film came, and I saw it, was two years after this event in Durham.
Actually, this was not the real ending. Here is the real one:
My story, of course, ended differently. The principal let it sink in for what seemed like an eternity – but was probably only a few minutes – before he sat down and looked at us calmly, without the slightest trace of a smile.
“This isn’t the country you live in,” he said. “But it could be. Remember that.”
Now, go and compare what Moscow-on-Thames writer Sam Greene has to compare this to:
Object Lessons
Posted on April 29, 2016
https://moscowonthames.wordpress.com/2016/04/29/object-lessons/
I will just highlight one quote he gives from the bad guys of his story:
“we need to rid these Jewish [sic!] children of demons. They’ve been brainwashed, they’re abnormal, they need to be medicated.”
Brainwashed, abnormal, need medication ... and even the old Pharisaic adage of "they have a demon". There is a connection between psychiatry and Pharisaism.
There was a nun in Moldova who was given an exorcism she died in "instead of psychiatry". Perhaps she needed neither. Perhaps she was a victim of Pharisees claiming to exorcise (expressis verbis) just as previously she would have risked wishing to die of exposed to modern Pharisees claiming to "exorcise" her "demons" (modern fashion) with medication, because she was "abnormal" or "brainwashed".
Apart from that, I leave to you to discover the story Sam Greene is telling about right now.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Maximin of Aix
Disciple of Our Lord
8.VI.2016
PS, I will give you one glimpse. And a comment to it:
Liudmila Ulitzkaja was sprayed with green paint. She was grateful it was not sulphuric acid. Well, she should be grateful. As I recall the Faurisson affaire, he did get some drops of that thrown in the direction of his face, and he was also stoned (not as in having smoked, but as in having been hit by stones thrown at him)./HGL
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