“Sophomore Sean Allen recorded about 20 minutes of Bennish’s class during a February 1 discussion about Bush’s State of the Union speech and gave the recording to his father, who complained to the principal,” Cherry Creek School District spokeswoman Tustin Amole told CNN. Unable to locate a recent photo of Bennish, CNN rummaged through an old high school year book and posted a thirty plus year old photo of Bennish on its website. It’s a perfect photo for the story. Bennish has long hair. CNN wants us to know Bennish is a dirty hippie. Of course, all who criticize Bush are either dirty hippies or traitorous fifth columnists, as Senator Lindsey Graham suspects. Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root is busy constructing camps for such malcontents.

It appears Bennish’s student has taken a cue from the Bruin Alumni Association, a “fledgling alumni group headed by a former campus Republican leader” that pays UCLA students a hundred dollars for “information on instructors who are ‘abusive, one-sided or off-topic’ in advocating political ideologies,” according to the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. “The year-old Bruin Alumni Assn. says its ‘Exposing UCLA’s Radical Professors’ initiative takes aim at faculty ‘actively proselytizing their extreme views in the classroom, whether or not the commentary is relevant to the class topic.’ Although the group says it is concerned about radical professors of any political stripe, it has named an initial ‘Dirty 30' of teachers it identifies with left-wing or liberal causes,” for instance opposing the illegal Straussian neocon invasion and occupation of Iraq, predicated on impeachable lies and fabrications, and speaking out against the decimation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Back in 2001, a couple months after nine eleven, the “second lady,” Lynne Cheney, and the American Council of Trustees and Alumni released a report claiming that “colleges and university faculty have been the weak link in America’s response to the attack” of nine eleven. “According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, ACTA’s report documents 117 incidents since September 11 that reflect ‘a shocking divide between academe and the public at large.’ And while the report titled ‘Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America, and What Can Be Done About It,’ affirms the right of professors to academic freedom, at the same time maintains that this freedom does not make academics immune to criticism,” Bill Berkowitz wrote for Working For Change.

Jay Bennish, portrayed as a hippie on the CNN website, was not only denied “academic freedom,” it appears there is a good chance he will be bounced from his job for comparing Bush to Hitler, an apropos comment when you compare Hitler’s Enabling Act (Ermächtigungsgesetz) with Bush’s Patriot Act. “History teaches us that it is shockingly easy to separate reasonable and intelligent people from their rights. A legally elected leader and party can easily manipulate national events to whip up fear, crucify scapegoats, gag dissenters, and convince the masses that their liberties must be suspended (temporarily, of course) in the name of restoring order,” notes the Furniture for the People website. “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country,” declared Hitler’s right hand man, Hermann Goering.

It works the same in America. But don’t expect CNN to point it out and don’t expect anybody to come to Bennish’s defense for fear of cavorting with a “fifth columnist” that happens to point out the reality of the political situation in this country. In Hitler’s Germany, all educational institutions were purged of dissenting voices. In America, we can expect likewise.

Addendum

Here is a link to an MP3 of Sean Allen’s covert tape. After listening to the MP3, it becomes obvious the Cherry Creek School District had more to fear than Bennish’s comments about Bush’s State of the Union address.