Lane von Herzen: "Snakes in the Classroom": When the FBI Coerces Lies from Students Online

My Third Novel's Conclusion, My Heartbreak

My heart begins to break when I think about completing this particular book -- because this narrative has sustained me like no other story I've known. It's both more personal and more universal than my other works. But beyond memory and archetype, it's a cri-de-coeur about needing to become the person one is destined to be. And in the writing, I have met my own life's work, my own fated journey -- having the sense all the while that the pages are suffused with a resonance, an energy, an electrified field that defies explanation. Writers hope and pray to be overtaken by a work in this way -- to be conscripted into passionate service of a profound story. To experience it even once in a lifetime seems a great privilege. I still have several months before this novel is complete, and this constitutes my reprieve. Because I'm not ready for the beauty to end.

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

"Snakes in the Classroom": When the FBI Coerces Lies from Students Online

OIG Hotline, please be apprised that FBI affiliates appear to be alleging that there are "serpents in the classroom," apparently referring to my online Project Management class.

I have engaged in extremely little Zoom messaging during this class.

Below, I asked the instructor, regarding a seemingly unusual answer to a practice question -- which nearly the whole of the class found surprising -- "Is it the case that the answer implies that there is a Team Norm problem and not a management problem?"

I was trying to illuminate an issue of testing bias, which all exams, to some degree, incorporate.

It appears that the FBI or its affiliates are paying some students among the 40 individuals taking this online class to misreport my rare commentary.

In that case, I will not participate at all in this setting.

I would simply make the point that the FBI is actively depriving me of the normal classroom exchange that represents an invaluable component of all learning.

Does the FBI prove its worthiness by coercing false reporting over details like this?

Hardly.

The FBI should be encouraging independent thought and analysis on the part of the American electorate, so that when they think about the candidates on the ballot, they can dedicate some analysis, insight, knowledge of history, and developed wisdom to their voting process. The whole nation benefits from an informed and perceptive electorate in this regard.

The fact that the far right is actively discouraging this type of necessary inquiry, whether in a classroom or a nation, weakens the fundamentals of our democracy as a whole, and renders the extremists within the FBI a fearful and oppressive lot, with a tragic incapacity for truthful engagement with the American public.

I will end by observing that my mother grew up in Texas. When she came across a rattlesnake among the bluebonnets, she learned early on how to dispatch it with one swing of a garden hoe.

Serpents have no place among those who love democracy. Extremist FBI personnel may be happier in planning their future emigration to an autocratic locale that would best suit their reliance on disinformation and deceit.

I think Americans are better served by honest and respectful engagement with one another, and I hope history proves my point.

Most sincerely,