to tell DD to stay put and not do what her teacher has just told her?

[quackermoomoo]

DD1 is in 6 form - they don't have a uniform, their rules just say that nothing lowcut or very short, beach attire etc

I'm spanish - my great GP all fought on Republican side in civil war, GP involved against Franco as were parents.

My Grandfather bought my DD a t-shirt for her birthday a few days ago. She really likes it (okay so it is winter so she is wearing a long sleeved black top under it) and went to school wearing it. It has a montif of Dolores Ibarruri on the side. (DD has just got very into our family history)

She has just phoned to say she has been told to go home. She is obviously shocked. The school send people home to get changed if clothes dont match the code. Head of 6 form told her that political symbols are againt school rules - I just checked no where in cotract she signed does it say that.

I have seen students walking to school past our house wearing tops with Che Guevara on and one person in DS1 class wore a Tory party top when the elction was on (he is at uni) and they were allowed to wear it.

She doesn't want to go home and change and I don't think she should have to.

I told her to stay put and if head says anything tell him to phone me. We shall wait and see

AIBU to not back up school?

Trotsky: Motto 'The end justifies the means'.

• Under Trotsky, with the sidelining of the Left Social Revolutionary opposition and the casting aside of Nikolai Podvoisky, who had advocated a strong element of democracy in the Red Army, the Red Army ended up accountable only to the Communist Party leadership and therefore not to the people.
• Used the services of former Imperial generals, officers and technical experts in the Red Army (supervised closely) during the Civil War.

During the Civil War, compulsory obedience, forced conscription, Party involvement in discipline (political commissars), and promotion to officer rank by the leadership instead of through democratic election all occurred under Trotsky.

• Quote: 'An army cannot be built without reprisals. Masses of men cannot be led to death unless the army command has the death-penalty in its arsenal'.
• Argued against invading Poland (an overreaching gambit of a defensive war in the context of the Civil War) only on the basis that the Red Army was too weak at that point to succeed. His case had nothing to do with respect for Polish autonomy. Once war with Poland (1919-21) got under way he was committed to winning it, with the westward spread of Communism as the ultimate aim; the Red Army was defeated at Warsaw basically because Stalin refused to obey Trotsky's orders.
• Enthusiastically supported War Communism as long as it seemed to be working, and attempted to apply the same militaristic principle to railways when placed in charge of railroads 1919-20 (while still in overall control of the Red Army).
• Enthusiastically advocated the militarisation of the working class and disputed the need for unions of workers in Soviet Russia -- why would workers have anything to fear from their state, after all?
• Changed his tune and supported revolution by more democratic means in the early 1920s, having unfortunately laid the groundwork for and demonstrated the effectiveness of the 'top down' model throughout his former revolutionary career.

Trotsky's great piece of good luck (from the pov of the judgement of history, or history as it is understood here on MN anyway) was to have been essentially frozen out by Lenin initially, at the 10th Party Conference in 1921, when his faction fell to Lenin's and the Party adopted a secret resolution on Party unity and the outlawing of 'factions'; he was later completely isolated by Stalin, who used the resolution to discredit Trotsky (and many other opponents). His exile to the west and subsequent murder in 1940 were the icing on the cake as far as his place in history goes. If he had remained in the Soviet Union he would undoubtedly have been executed during the Purges and would have become a footnote of history like all the other formerly prominent Bolsheviks who fell foul of Stalin.

On Lenin vs. Stalin --
Throughout the Revolution, Lenin showed an uncanny instinct towards consolidating power and elimination of uppity opponents. By 1921 (10th Party Conference) Trotsky presented a threat to Lenin's policy and hence his position in the regime over the question of militarisation of the workers/how to secure the allegiance of the masses. As head of the Red Army he overplayed his hand in the political sphere, where Lenin was detemined to reign supreme. He had failed to understand that he was useful to Lenin (and therefore to the Revolution) and his opinions welcomed only as long as his talents in wartime were needed and as long as his opinions were confined to things military. His last hurrah before becoming embroiled in the power struggle with Stalin, ironically for a so-called revolutionary, was suppression of the Kronstadt Rebellion. Lenin had use for him as a counterweight to Stalin but once Lenin fell ill and died, Trotsky was dangerously exposed. His opposition to Stalin during the remainder of the 1920s had as much to do with personality and the realisation that consignment to the dustbin of revolutionary history and perhaps the grave awaited the loser as it had to do with principle.

Stalin learned much from observation of Lenin imo, and correctly understood the lessons from the Civil War too -- revolution was not some fairy tale where the goodies won in the end and they all lived happily after, but an enterprise to be accomplished by any means necessary. The wholesale abandonment of revolutionary principles in the Red Army in order to secure the Revolution against the White and other forces was a taste of things to come. There is no real break between Lenin and Stalin. The whole history of the Revolution is one of a continuum of aims and means.

So no Trotsky T-shirt for me. I prefer to type my opinions.

I would be proud too if it was my DD. As many others have said we have a statue of La Passionara here by the Clyde in Glasgow. Underneath is the inscription" Better to die on your feet than to live forever on your knees". Many from Glasgow went to fight facism and once a year there is a little remembrance service by the statue. Only one survivor left now and he is 98! I have family in Madrid and disagree with the poster who says nobody in Spain talks of Franco now.
I would be gutted if my DD wanted to dress like an accountant at 18. I agree wholeheartdly with the poster (was it Malinois?) who said that it was because schools wanted to produce drones who would not question the system!

I would like to say that I loathe school uniforms and think the HT made a fool of himself by inventing a rule. I agree that American public schools have the right idea in general terms.

I also loathe the T-shirtification of historical figures. There is more to history than can ever be depicted on a T-shirt.

Additionally, I always wonder where the money from all those shirts is going. I have a suspicion that some fatcat is laughing all the way to some bank that also does a brisk foreclosure business. And I have questions about the conditions under which the cotton is grown and processed and how much the textile workers are paid, etc.

Excellent posts mathanxiety

"drones who would not question the system!"
How insulting, more than happy with my "drones"
Do you really think that because they wear a suit to school, they can't express themselves outside school hours! I am having nasty visions at the moment of my DS in his morph suit

There's no real point attempting a detailed debate of the Trotsky stuff because, believe me, there are very long and rather dull arguments to be had until the cows come home on specific forums about revolutionary socialism. If anybody feels so minded to explore the issues further there is a hell of a lot of discussion about it out there.

If it was my DD I certainly wouldn't be proud-I would think that she had very little to think about if she has to take a stance over something completely unimportant and would be asking her the questions that mathsanxiety has put forward.
I would also ask her what she was doing to make a difference in the world. I would be proud of her if she did some voluntary work or joined something like Amnesty International, but not if she is going to to be irritating in a way that doesn't help anyone. It may not have been written on the uniform code, but she knew what the unwritten code was-presumably she has looked at the 6th form when she was lower down the school. I also think it off putting-I would want my DCs to go to a school with mature 6th formers-not one where they get caught up in petty detail and miss the big picture.

Does she know who gets the profits from the Tshirt?

exotic she will have to ask the person who bought it for her.
To her it was important, to her it was someone telling her she couldn't express herself in a way that wasn't harming anyone.
What unwritten rule - already said that in her years and those previously students wore Che t-shirts all the time and one wore a tory tshirt. And they weren't told to take them off. She was. She wasn't alright with that.
DD doesn't need to do all those thing sfor me to be proud of her. But actually your pressumbtion that she doesn't do those things is not very nice at all - She is currently doing her leadershipo qualification to be a Guider, she is helping me (volunterrily) with coming strike and orgaised her 6th form to join local march, She is actually part of Amnesty Internation in local schools, she was part of a group in school that campaigner for the school to have MAP as their charity a few years back. She doesn't need to do those things but she does. To her the tshirt itself is just a tshirt the fact she was told to remove was the issue. She stood up for herself to head of 6th form, she didn't shout didn't swear didn't tell him to get stuffed. told him that she wasnt breaking rules and was going to class. She doesnt have to keep her head down - she can continue to be the wonderful person she is.

"I would be proud of her if she did some voluntary work " Exactly Maths. My little drone volunteers at a special needs playscheme and a special needs swim club . Am very proud of her!

Good for her for the extra things she is involved in. I just don't think that what you wear is important. I would have just told her to put something over it. She is only in school for 6 hrs-there is plenty of time to wear it.

I can see that it matters to her-so good for her I suppose BUT I would save arguments for things that matter.

I think after all the fuss she ought to find out who made the thing and who profits-she might not like the answers!

The only point to the discussion of the ins and outs of revolutionary socialism is that it demonstrates that anyone can make any argument in support of any T-shirt and hope to prevail on the basis of that argument.

The only basis for the argument in favour of wearing the shirt was that there was no rule against it.

Well, at least this thread is being useful to teach many of us lots of things about historical figures :)

I have an historical figure, and I encase it in a longsleeve t-shirt everyday I consider it my civic duty.

in my experience school uniforms are always a good thing for schools.

i was always fairly ambivalent about them but a long school career has changed my mind.

no contract can possibly cover all eventualities.

its won't say anything about wearing a clowns costume for example.

the vast majority of schools wont allow T-shirts of this nature. it can cause arguments, bad feeling, and lead to others wearing worse shirts. i.e. hitler, scargill, thatcher, cameron- can you see why it can get iffy?

and how stupid and obstructive for the mom to say "she won't take it off"

any head worth his/her salt will simply say "fine- you are suspended till you do".

of course the girl can wear a normal top at school like the other students. In the evening she can wear precisely what she likes.