A few people have criticized me for the callousness I display towards Superintendent John Stanford, who is desperately ill with leukemia. A surprisingly larger contingent acknowledge the same feelings but think it’s either improper or imprudent to display them. Some have advised me to cool it, lest I alienate the public.
These are tough, complex, and unpleasant issues to deal with. And I don’t encourage people to deal with them any more than I encourage them to give a damn about bureaucracy in our public schools. On the contrary, I urge Seattleites to return to their TVs and pizzas. Let the Seattle Times tell you who to vote for and what to think about Stanford.
In the meantime, I’ve wrestled with this philosophical dilemma, and I have arrived at a position I feel comfortable with:
I could deny my feelings, but that would make me a liar and a hypocrite, just like John Stanford. I prefer to be a hated truth-monger rather than a respected hypocrite.
I could take the middle road and not comment on Stanford at all, but that still strikes me as somehow disingenuous. It’s also a bit complex; must I follow the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s example and issue disclaimers before I criticize Stanford’s policies and inaction? Should I erase everything I wrote about Stanford before his illness?
Furthermore, there is a much larger issue than John Stanford to consider. If you can’t guess what it is, then there’s no point reading any further.
For other people who are wrestling with their feelings, here are some of the questions I asked myself in working out this philosophical problem:
• What about the thousands of decent, truthful, law-abiding citizens who suffer life-threatening illnesses in anonymity? How do you think they feel to see a man who has so ruthlessly exploited children hailed as a hero?
• Believe it or not, Seattle School District has been known to inflict some pretty horrendous mental torture on “political dissidents,” some of whom have privately confided in me that they view Stanford’s illness as an “act of God.” My investigations have uncovered one report of a teacher who allegedly committed suicide due to such persecution and a couple seriously ill teachers who colleagues believe were hounded to death by mean-spirited administrators. Do these people who truly dedicated their lives to children deserve to be honored with parades and rallies?
• In honoring Stanford more than we do respectable citizens, do we somehow validate lying, deception, and arrogance?
• Do you think former Seattle Schools attorney Gary Little deserves sympathy for the mental anguish he endured before he ended his life? (If you don’t know who Gary Little was, don’t ask. You don’t want to know.)
• Is what people think about me really that important anyway? If I stop criticizing Stanford, will I enjoy the same respect I received during the my first decade with Seattle Schools, when I was insulted, harrassed, slandered, and humiliated? (Curiously, I’ve beem treated with far more respect since I went on the offensive.) And why should I value the opinions of people who stand by and shrug their shoulders as teachers and students are ground up by the bureaucracy John Stanford reformed?
• Is it possible that the accolades the Seattle Establishment continue to bestow on John Stanford are polluting our children’s belief systems? Are they learning that greed is good, arrogance cool? As Stanford and another famous liar, President Clinton, deal with very different yet somehow similar crises, what do we tell children about truth and honesty? Should we emulate Seattle Times columnist Jennifer James, and simply concoct a “new story”?
• Are you aware that many children in Seattle Schools are already living in pain? Is it moral to teach homeless children and children from broken families that a world-class leader named John Stanford loves them passionately, then remind them again and again and again that the best friend they could ever have is soon going to die? What kind of public officials would send out memos advising teachers to urge their charges to make get-well cards designed to support a power structure that all too often violently separates children from educators who truly love them?
Is it therefore wrong to offer Stanford sympathy? Not at all. How you deal with Stanford’s illness is entirely up to you — with the following qualifications:
• Mourn John Stanford the man, not John Stanford the public education martyr.
• Do it on your own time.
• Don’t divert tax dollars from the classroom to fuel your mourning rituals and back-to-school rallies.
• Don’t exploit Stanford’s illness for political purposes, especially to shore up a corrupt and tottering power structure.
• Last but most important, don’t drag children into it!
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism - 
