From Saturday's Herald-Sun/CHH: "President Obama's plan to give a televised speech to the nation's students Tuesday might be causing a ruckus in some locales....
But
Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Superintendent Neil Pedersen has sent
a note encouraging principals and teachers to make Obama's speech
available to students Tuesday at noon if schedules permit.
Obama plans to urge students to work hard, set goals and to take
responsibility for their educations. President George H.W. Bush gave a
similar back-to-school address in 1991 and so did President Ronald
Reagan before him."
No single episode has spotlighted the crazed, anti-Obama monomania of Republicans as well as this one. There's such a stunning lack of acknowledgment of their own inconsistency that we could stand in awe if it weren't part of a larger, yet more irrational and predatory mindset.
There's no question that if the shoe were on the other foot -- if Democrats had criticized a Bush or Reagan "indoctrination" of their school children and tried to prevent them from hearing the President's speech -- Republicans would have howled about the lack of patriotism and near-treasonous lack of respect for The Office of The President.
It's tempting to thank Sup. Pedersen for taking at least an "encouraging" stand, but it's idiotic that he should have been called upon to do so in the first place. I remember toasting Pres. Eisenhower with a glass of milk in 1st grade. Clearly, that "indoctrination" failed with me, but I did remember honoring the Presidency.
Issues:
Comments
are the bat-shit crazies of today...
Unfortunately, the Orange County School system has taken a less enlightened position on the speech. Per their website:
"Please note that this address is an optional instructional activity.
A parent or guardian has the option of not allowing their child to
watch the address and participate in the activities. For those
students who do not participate, supervision will be provided at
each school."
Will this policy apply to other speakers that a school may bring in? Will I have the right as a parent to demand that my child opt out of a controversial subject matter because the teacher may have an opposing viewpoint? It seems OCS has not thought through the implications of its opt out policy.
Those interested can find the text of the speech on this White House site. http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/
Thanks for the scoop, Mike. I was satisfied in advance that this would be a perfectly acceptable back-to-school message, but I'm disappointed to see that the speech is too long and loaded with platitudes. Blah blah blah.
But will he hit back at the sleazy manipulators who are behind this move? With each passing day, as the bs mounts, I wonder when will the Obama administration do the proper and strategic thing and hit back hard at these scumbags?
The N&O blog on this subject has gotten more replies than any in the history of Under the Dome. It's full of folks calling Obama a communist. I have a few replies in there. http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/white_house_releases_school_speech
It's amazing to see the rampant energetic ignorance. It's equally distressing to see the total lack of an appropriate response from the Obama team. I can't help but think that this will not end well.
I don't get it. The wingnuts are against the president speaking to their elementary school kids because he might fill them full of liberal stuff. What do they want to do, follow their kids to school every day to monitor and control every single interaction that their kids have with any human being in the school? A typical grade school has 600 kids and maybe 40 faculty and staff. The kids talk to everyone, thousands of interactions each day. Eventually the parents have to trust someone, including their own kids, to accept or reject the information thrown at them, based on their value system.Kids know how to reject stuff, to separate noise from reality. By the time a kid reaches 18, he has seen 20,000 murders on TV, but he doesn't grow up to be Jack the Ripper.
... in calling shenanigans on the complaints. I agree with Newt, this is all ridiculous. There's nothing bad in the speech (although the kids will tune it out, it's very poorly written/targeted), and the Education Department edited their 'instructions' which were what began the hullabaloo anyway.Matter of fact, the is the FIRST productive, positive thing I've seen come from this President so far. Hopefully this will be the start of his eventual move towards the center, and an end to the divisiveness.
I recall watching taped speeches by both George Bush and Raegan when I was in elementary school, and I remember Nancy Raegan coming onto Diff'rent Strokes to tell me to Just Say No. I still turned out a liberal Democrat. I think some of these parents need to get honest and admit that they do not fear a socialist. They fear a black man in a position of power. How long will we give these people a platform from which to spew their nonsense? He is the President of the United States of America and he has a message to deliver to the school children of America. Period.
Anybody know which one? It was a county school. I know that Cedar Ridge did broadcast it. (My son showed up late after school with a hammer & sickle tattoo.)
... did not watch the speech with the rest of Orange County Schools
because of technical issues, but they were set to watch it yesterday
morning.
The Chapel Hill News simply reported that all but one school in Orange County listened to the speech, while also reporting that all the Chapel Hill - Carrboro Schools did.
This is a true story. I was a fairly conservative Republican high school senior in a then Republican town in a northeastern state until my high school had Saul Alinsky speak to an assembly at my high school gym. I changed my political thinking 180 degrees after that speech. So don't laugh at the idea that one speaker in a school can have an effect. I think President Obama was also strongly influenced by Alinsky's community organizing methods and theories. On the other hand, Obama's speech was really pablum.
I've been involved in our local Alinsky-trained group (to publicly launch with a new name next month) and can understand how moving that can be. They challenge us from a faith perspective (which today we'd also usually equate with conservative) to make the world a better place locally. It is hard not to be energized by the posssibilities when one of the good organizers gets a group fired up.
We're living in crazy times. I only hope rationality can be restored before my son starts being more aware of the world around him.