Black Ops Jungle: The Academy of Military-Industrial-Complex Studies

Spy High

Dedicated to everything from architecture to sports medicine, "career academies" claim to offer high school kids focus, relevancy, and solid job prospects. Now add a new kind of program to the list: homeland security high. In late August, Maryland's Joppatowne High School became the first school in the country dedicated to churning out would-be Jack Bauers. The 75 students in the Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness magnet program will study cybersecurity and geospatial intelligence, respond to mock terror attacks, and receive limited security clearances at the nearby Army chemical warfare lab.


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The new school is funded and guided by a slew of federal, state, and local agencies, not to mention several defense firms. Officials say it will teach kids to understand the "new reality," though they hasten to add that the school isn't focused just on terrorism. School administrators, channeling Cheneyesque secrecy, refused to be interviewed for this story. But it's no secret that the program is seen as a model for the rest of the country, with the Pentagon and other agencies watching closely.

Students will choose one of three specialized tracks: information and communication technology, criminal justice and law enforcement, or "homeland security science." David Volrath, executive director of secondary education for Harford County Public Schools, says the school also hopes to offer "Arabic or some other nontraditional, Third World-type language."

The school's main goal is to get its grads jobs in the booming $24-billion-a-year homeland security industry. It's certainly in the right location: Northeast Maryland has become a mecca for the military-industrial complex. The Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground is the county's biggest employer, and all manner of defense contractors have set up shop nearby, including weapons maker Northrop Grumman.

However, it's not clear how many Joppatowne grads will be on track to join the upper echelons of the intelligence community and how many will wind up as airport screeners. "We do want to encourage higher education," Volrath says. "We also want to be realistic. Some of these defense contractors will have huge security needs, and the jobs won't require four years of college."

Critics see the school as a troubling landmark: a public school, possibly the first of many, that is an active participant in the war on terror. Jonathan Zimmerman, director of New York University's History of Education Program, says that if it offered students an "intellectually curious" curriculum, "I'd send my daughter there. But my fear is that they will instead teach a series of predigested truths about keeping our country safe."

Volrath maintains that Joppatowne High will remain above the fray. "The school's built around the marketplace that surrounds the defense industry," he explains, "but the program's not involved in war or peace. Still, there are some realities about good guys and bad guys that will surely be discussed."

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Comments
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This is horrifying.

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Glad I do not live in America

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No Child left behind tags all the kids so that they will not escape the draft (wh/ the GOP would love to re-instate). Now they are working to brainwash our kids over to their agenda for the "war on terror."
EDUCATION is what we need - both here in the USA and for the poor people of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran & Iraq (etc) so that there is no population from which to recruit terrorists*.
*Read 3 Cups of Tea.

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This is what you can call a Madrassah of the US military-industrial complex.

The "good guys" are obedient to the omnipotent state. The "bad guys" are the ones who dissent.

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Core text: 7 Pillars of Wisdom! Like the Iliad, only more relevant to questions of the "clash of civilizations" and asymmetrical warfare, as well as the specific historical narratives of imperialism and the Arab revolt.

Seriously, if you happen to be connected with Joppatown High, you should be reading this.

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"have behavioural problems?
parents too stressed out to parent?

really good at online combat games?

well, we've got a career for YOU"

BlueBerry Pick'n
can be found @
ThisCanadian.com

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You people seem content on laying down and being slaughtered by the bad guys... you don't want to raise a generation of warriors to fight this war.. I guess we ARE dead as a country, if you have your way...

Very Sad...!!!

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It's all about false choices: either you are for anti terrorist training or you are a supporter of Al Qaeda and approve of its mayhem. Welcome to the bipolar world of the future where you get to choose between authoritarian evil and anti authoritarian evil. If you are inclined towards righteousness you will be labeled as a sympathizer to those who do evil.

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You've got to be kidding! Where is this going to stop?

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This is light years beyond Eisenhower's worst nightmare.

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This is terrible. The kids should be taught valuable skills, like applying for welfare or something else more noble.

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How about a well-funded magnet prgram focusing on ecological science and conservation training?!

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Economy is determinant in the last instance.

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I hope this country is still around in 8-10 years. I'm going to start making babies again just so I can do my part in keeping the country safe!

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This confirms, if there was still any doubt, that public education is not about intellectual development and independent thought. It is about indoctrination. This school embraces that fact without admitting it.

The "market driven" aspect of the school's curriculum ensures the prevalence of "predigested truths". This is absolutely shameful and embarrassing.

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Do they dress up in jack boots and sing goose step marching songs?

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I'm going to major in Fascism, and minor in Interrogation Techniques!

I'm also going to make some money after school making brown armbands for my classmates.

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“Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.”

Joseph Stalin

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Around 1950, scholars noted stirrings:
“At the present time, the hatred of the Islamic countries toward the West has become hatred against Christianity itself. Statesmen are now taking it into account that there is a grave danger that the temporal power of Islam may return on a broad scale…,and affirm itself as a great anti-Christian world power. Moslem writers say, "When the locust swarms darken vast countries, they bear on their wings these Arabic words, "We are God's host, each of us has 99 eggs, and if we had 100, we should lay waste to the world and all that is in it." What may “the hundredth egg” be?

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great, kids being told to pidgeon-hole their futures even more tightly into the Mil Industrial complex

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Oh my God, this is TERRIBLE! Fighting for the rottten imperialist and corrupt America is so yesterday and so not-progressive...
Did you hug a terrorist today?

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I'm in the program we learn about natural disasters and we do table top drills

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Colin's assertion that HSEP will not guarantee college grads is really at the heart of the problem of "career training", and he is on point in mentioning airport screening as a viable option. The program's draw for media attention has clouded a much larger problem for Joppatowne, Maryland schools, and schools nationwide. Career training is only as good as the literacy of its participants. When gym teachers instruct social studies classes as a result of a budget shortcomings,how can the salary for a "Program Director" be approved? It's an insult that such a select group be singled out to receive monies better spent on after-school tutoring, field trips, and enrichment for all.

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Why does this remind so of the System of denounciations and "spy on your neighbours for big brother 'jobs', created by the STASI in the Former Deutsch-Democratic Republic, the DDR, hmm? The focus in religiously militarily indoctrinate Kids through education has long being set in the U.S.A, it is called -for now- NCLB, and its goal is to get 'g-d' and the opposite of knowledge (that would be Fiction -the Bible, Jingoism - and Greed -Privatization of education) in childrens brains while leaving the entire American Society FAR behind by wasting their little then made to be underdeveloped Brains as god's little foot soldiers in economical- Holy War, surely only commanded by "gawd" and fatherland.
All in the name of "Gawd" "pro-Life" and 'Protecting' the American People from the evil "the Others" and Marsians, certainly.
The irony is though that such constitutional and cognitive incompetence always eats its own "Masters in the end, as evidential on-going by now.

Godly "tax-exempt" Day, Americans.
SoD1

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I think we need to consider

I think we need to consider not to be overwhelmed with the idea that Military-Industrial-Complex Studies are designed just to equip people to find their way out. Military studies for youth in broader term relies on where the basic social and school environment is maintained in accordance with military organization, principles, discipline, and traditions. So as to prepare our youth for better future, yet not just for fighting terrorism. Like I quote from a site" Military schools have been a part of human culture for a very long time. The earliest military schools we know of were in ancient Greece. Starting in eighth century B.C., the city-state of Sparta fought two wars with the neighboring state of Messina, and then transformed their own country into a military society. It was reported that the principle purpose of all education in Sparta came to be the development of soldiers. Hence, all schools were military schools.Boys were sent to a residential military school at age six or seven. They continued with their military training there until they were 18 to 20 years old, when they were subjected to rigorous testing. If they passed they became a soldier and citizen. If they failed they were not considered citizens and were given no political rights. Few people today would choose such a society. Source: Military School

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great!!

thanks for give us information about Black Ops Jungle: The Academy of Military-Industrial-Complex Studies!!

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excellent

hello friend, thanks for sharing this blog about Black Ops Jungle: The Academy of Military-Industrial-Complex Studies, this topic is very interesting for all world.

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This is terrible. The kids

This is terrible. The kids should be taught valuable skills, like applying for welfare or something else more noble.

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In late August, Maryland's

In late August, Maryland's Joppatowne High School became the first school in the country dedicated to churning out would-be Jack Bauers. The 75 students in the Homeland Security and Emergency

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give us information about

give us information about Black Ops Jungle: The Academy of Military-Industrial-Complex Studies!!

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I would like to appreciate

I would like to appreciate the efforts you have made in writing this article and i am hoping the same good work from you in the future as well.I would like to appreciate the efforts you have made in writing this article and i am hoping the same good work from you in the future as well.

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