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The text of President Obama’s speech scheduled for delivery tomorrow to public school children has been released today; I’ve read it.
And I asked both of my kids if they read it.
With a bored, so-what shrug, the new sophomore said, "It’s rather elementary, but I suppose it has to be since it’s meant to reach elementary school kids. Like kindergartners."
The new middle-schooler was more forthcoming.
"Yeah, I read this part about Obama and his mom this past year," by which he referred to the portion of the speech in which Obama recalls how mother got him up at 4:30 a.m. to study. "I already knew about that. And the President is telling kids the same thing you already tell us, that we need to go to school and study and work hard."
I asked him about parents being afraid to let kids hear President Obama’s speech — what did he think about this?
"Profiling. They’re profiling him."
You could have knocked me over with a feather; I wasn’t expecting this for an answer. Really? Profiling? What did he mean?
"Yeah, the parents are like Maxwell Smart in the Get Smart movie. Max says, ‘I’m not profiling, I’m not profiling…he looks EVIL! But I’m not profiling…‘"
And off he went to go and enjoy the last day of summer vacation; I doubt this includes packing his backpack, though.
* * * * *
I wish I could summon more cogent thoughts in response.
But all I can think at this point in time is Get. The. Hell. Off. It.
You, the conservatives whining about the President’s speech to children tomorrow: Get off it.
The smart kids can see right through you. The older kids won’t be impacted by his speech because they are already firmly on the road or they are already lost.
The younger ones are more savvy than you give them credit; they already know you are acting out of pure bigotry.
And the youngest of school kids? Well, we can only hope that a message like "Go to school because you need education" isn’t going to scar them unduly. Goodness knows what crazy-ass messages you’d rather they heard from the government. We already know you are personally teaching them fear and bigotry instead of critical thinking.
You do realize that in a capitalist, free market society, workers compete against each other, right?
Fear and bigotry are going to make your kids unemployable in an adult work world where they compete for jobs with the rest of the globe — as if a lack of critical thinking and education won’t do that, too.
Over the past week you’ve managed to label encouragement to be responsible and completely prepared to compete for future jobs as socialist. What are you telling children about capitalism?
You’ve had your chance for the last decade-plus, between your former majority in Congress and your two terms in the White House. You’ve bankrupted us by lying us into an illegal war, by allowing greed to eat away at solid legislative protections and eventually eat away our nation’s personal savings, too. You’ve dumbed us down with your ownership stranglehold on media, so that blabber-mouth cry-babies like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are seen as the benchmark of media success.
And now you want kids to avoid hearing a speech encouraging their personal responsibility to obtain a good education?
Just stop.
And stay the hell away from my kids, you frightened, bigoted, crazy freaks.
[Photo: Crazy bus by bunchofpants, via Flickr.com. Cross-posted at Rayne Today.]
88 Comments
Yup. Stay the hell away from our kids, freaks!
Loved this.
If only I could embed an audio of Ozzie Osborne’s “Crazy Train,” in this post, too.
Both kids are straight A students; the older is in an international program which puts her on an even-keel with students around the world. She’s well on her way to a pre-med program in three more years; her idea of fun is playing with a web site which allows users to perform knee and hip replacement surgery on virtual patients.
The younger guy only knows so far that he loves science and wants to go to Oxford because they have a good biology program and it’s cheaper than American schools. I’m fine with it.
Beware any crazy-ass right-wing freak who thinks that either of these kids needs a dose of discouragement and gets between them and a decent public school education. Hell hath no fury like an angry mother — particularly THIS angry mother.
Whoo Hoo on your kids, Rayne! They come from sturdy genes.
Good that your kid is thinking about Oxford, but try to get him to think about a good school such as Cambridge. My kid went there and got an excellent education even though the library wasn’t open very much on weekends. He is now a post doc at Harvard.
We’re open to evaluating Cambridge, had heard that Oxford’s biology program was quite good and the price was ridiculously good, too. I’m sure that the boy is thinking to himself, “Wow, if I save a bunch of money on tuition, they’ll buy me a car, too…”
Have about five more years to gather info and save money, check with me then. Heh. A lot can happen in that amount of time.
you got some smart kewl kids!
Great post Rayne! Unfortunately the freaks aren’t leaving anytime soon. It will be a long school year. No doubt some of these freaks will blame Obama for their kids’ failures.
“Go to school because you need education”
Clearly, this is a Communist-inspired statement. By the way, I hope you all know that the jury is still out on that whole “gravity” thing…
Great photo up above! So does Michele Bachmann drive Glenn Beck, or is it the other way around? Hey Wingnuts: All aboard!
You’ve obviously raised a couple of Liberals looking for handouts, just like any good Liberal would…/s
Yes, as a parent myself, it’s been interesting to me how much less tolerance I have for Teh Crazy now, and especially in cases like this where it directly impacts my kids. No patience any more for the lies, and it’s important to raise kids who understand this as well. Well done! We’ll sweep the modern-day Repub mindset into history’s dustbin, where it belongs.
What could he possibly say that would upset parents so much?
I suppose he should have released the text of this speech to the schools in advance so that they would see it was harmless and probably inspiring kids to work hard at school. The mystery gave them an opening to imagine some sort of brain washing. YIKES.
There are going to be kids whose parents kept them away from the speech who are going to hear about what was in it from their friends. Some may have serious doubts about their parent’s sanity.
You have heard, haven’t you, that Sarah Palin is giving the Republican Response to the stay in school message, yes?
(yes, that is a joke….)
Maybe Sarah and Bobby could tag-team the response. If only…
You betcha!!!
O/T: Tom Tomorrow is up:
http://www.salon.com/comics/to…..index.html
Hey wackos keep your kids away but make sure you bring them to the next tea party.
The freaks don’t have mirrors in which to look, I guess.
I have wondered many times over the past week during all their whining and puling about Obama’s speech whether Reagan’s speech to kids back in 1989 didn’t help set the tone for, well, you piece together the last two decades after Reagan’s appearance in these videos.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold would have been seven or eight years old in 1989.
My stepson, who served in Iraq and now has PTSD, would have been eight in 1989. If I’d only known then what I know now…
I don’t how many crack pots are actually out there. One gets the impression that they are many and vocal. Or is that just media hype?
The health care polling seems to indicate strong support for single payer and the PO. Why give so uch PR to the whack jobs? Is this swaying anyone?
These are the same parents who don’t want their kids in classes with Mezicans. They scream at the thought of their kids learning Spanish. They don’t get it. They don’t realize that the biliterate kids will soon enough be competing with their English Only kids.
Always out against their own interests, these sorry people.
Tell me about it.
My spouse is in China at the moment; it’s the 5th business trip he’s made there inside a year for his manufacturing firm. We’re going to have to learn Mandarin over the next couple of years if we’re going to keep up.
Or we’re going to have to focus on Made In America as a real manufacturing choice. Cheaper is not always a better business model. I’m glad the company my spouse works for is dedicated to that issue. Yes, they can buy from China cheaper and increase their margins but they refuse to go there. I wish more American manufacturers would embrace that idea.
It would be wise not to jump to conclusions when someone tells you they are doing business in China. China is the largest single under-developed market in the world; right now they are making products to ship out of the country, but their workers are increasingly wanting goods they can make in their own backyard.
My spouse is selling them manufacturing equipment which will be made HERE in the U.S.; assuming he wins the contract, the work could save his plant from closing down.
There are other under-developed markets, but they are much farther from an organized ability to plan and consume — like the African continent or India. Until they are ready, and until the American market has recovered, selling to China what we make here will be a necessity.
Good point. Maybe they’d like good American craft items? *g*
Actually, they like things like American baby formula.
Not really able to discuss that in detail, but let’s just say it’s a culture which has much to learn from us, including how to create a corporate culture of quality control.
That’s because the domestic baby formula was filled with, I believe Melamine, and killed over a thousand Chinese kids two years ago.
My family trys to buy American, but it is not easy. Virtually all electronics, appliances and a lot of home improvement items are foreign made these days. We have not set foot in a Wal-Mart Store in over a decade even though we have two within shopping distance. Even high end clothing is no longer USA made, let alone modest priced wear. A couple of months ago I was at my local Safeway and the apple juice was from China. You even have to read the food labels now. It is hard to convince Americans during a recession to be brand conscious when price is often the only factor considered, but I think as the country begins to recover there could be a push to make buying American a patriot issue. If people saw it as a jobs issue, they might be more willing to support American brands. Since foreign products also come from many countries that heavily pollute, it can be an environmental issue as well.
These are the same parents who warned me that there are child kidnappers hanging out at Disneyland.
It’s always going to be something. Something that the media will pickup because it has the simplest narrative.
When I first heard this idea on talk radio I burst out laughing. It just seemed so insane that I figured only the right-wing radio hosts in San Francisco (the craziest of the crazies) would push it. But then when I heard others, including politicians, I just got sad.
There is something wrong with these people. This is one of their silliest hissy fits. But each time this works they get more power.
Can I give you an example of their sickness?
Regarding the recently deceased Teddy Kennedy. On the day of his burial.
“Ted was shovel ready.”
- Brian Sussman, KSFO, ABC Radio, Citadel Broadcasting.
(Audio link)
OMFG. That is beyond offensive. They have absolutely no couth what so ever.
Sussman is the man who has been organizing the SF tea parties.
I made sure the local TV media had audio clips of his screams and the misinformation that he has been spreading so that if they did cover the event they could have excellent documentation of his previous comments. I didn’t want the tea party to stand alone without context. As Eli said here a few days before, one thing we can do is to make sure the media include the “other side” of the tea partiers. We tell them it is in the service of completeness.
Brian Sussman is also a birther. I provided the TV and press links to the crazy. BEFORE the event.
2) Did Sussman really call Dr. Emanuel, Dr. Easy Kill Emanuel?
Answers? YES! (transcript link)
“Some call him Dr. Easy Kill Emanuel.”
Your dad who’s suffering from the dementia? Your mom who’s got the Alzheimer’s? Guys like Dr. Emanuel want to kill them! I guess it would be called a mercy killing back in the 30’s in Germany. This is what they want to do to our people! That Down Syndrome baby? I’ve got news for you. There will be amniocentesis when the child is in the womb and when they find out that kid’s got Down Syndrome or some other life long ailment, oh they’ll put an end to that life in no time flat. Is this what you want?”
-Brian Sussman, KSFO, Citadel Broadcasting 8-7-2009 6:20pm (audio link)
Sounds just like Bill O’Reilly calling Dr. Tiller, Dr. Killer, doesn’t it? Remember how that turned out for Dr. Tiller?
He’p me! He’p me! I been hyp-mo-tized by Pres’d’nt Obama’s speech! His Kenyan Muslim powers o’ mesmerization done gone and tooked control o’ mah BRANE! Now Ah’m turnin’ into a gay socialist communist Nazi! Oh lawdamercy sumbuddy he’p me!
Ha!
These are the same people who don’t want to pay for frills like art and music in the schools, but football (or, in some areas, basketball) are Must! Have! programs, second only to mid-week church services in the family schedule.
They never wonder why we’re losing ground in science and engineering, because they don’t see education as important; someone else will take care of that stuff. (Then they complain about the people who are taking care of it, because they’re – horrors! – Furriners*.)
/s
This is what you learn when you live in places like Texas. The kids in school will be lucky if they grow up able to write a coherent, grammatical English sentence, but they’ll be able to tell you all about the Monday Night Football games.
* One of the local surgeons is from Turkey. He moved to Houston for a while because he needed a heart transplant, but came back and is practicing again. Nice guy.
It was the whole point of NCLB. Largely successful.
See how easy it is to rile up stupid people?
No, this was even before NCLB. They were using Texas for practice, though, I think.
This same host who was very upset about Obama warping the kids with his crazy ideas can’t have a civil discussion with a doctor about health insurance companies.
Listen as the doctor makes a point about an insurance trying to cut a woman off with a faked preexisting condition so they don’t have to pay for Crohn’s disease.
(Audio link)
Brian Sussman, KSFO, San Francisco. ABC Radio, Citadel Broadcasting.
What is especially strange is the doctor starts with AGREEING with Sussman and even then the host can’t allow another point to get through.
Are you working on another boycott?
Obama is black, he’s an other. That’s what all of this craziness is about, why the ignorant believe all the outrageous nonsense (with a lot of prodding by media and GOP authority figures). It’s no more complex than that. We still have deep-seated racism in this country, it’s just that few are willing to name it out loud.
Yeah, what puppethead said. Unfortunately, the list of “others” is a long list with these pathetically freaked out people.
As I believe Southern Dragon put it the other day:
“Ding fucking dong!”
Yup that’s it ! be afraid be very very afraid !
There’s a black man in the White House /s
Rayne – crossposting here:
Would this be something more like what you wanted for Max?
Oh dread Cthulhu!!! Heck yes!!!
And you said you didn’t do pop culture! I guess you just had to dig back far enough, like to Lovecraft, eh?
No, remembered this one from a couple of years ago, over at ‘Making Light’. (Mary Dell mashed it up. I’m not that good at messing with images.)
Ah yes…the really good pop culture is the stuff which repeats again and again throughout history, probably based on an unconscious archetype.
The one fly in the ointment of having Cthulhu rise from a stream bed and dispatch the unwary Max-the-Flycaster: it’d make him a martyr figure in the Cthulhu mythos.
[sigh]
Rahm Emmanuel is probably one of those “Cats of Ulthar” you know…
Just saying, you know, no man may kill a cat, or a Blue Dog….
Goopers have discovered that the more insane your behavior the more teevee time you get.
This shit just blows all the circuits of anybody’s ridiculous-o-meter.
If we’re really being taken over by these zombies and there’s nothing to be done, can we at least have some fun zombie movies (e.g. Shaun of the Dead) or something?
Zombies are a good analogy since they stagger around in an apparent state of perpetual brain deficit.
watertiger is upstairs!
Late Night: Oh, Tosh. Are There No Emergency Rooms?
Duck and Cover worked out well.
Oh, but I would have thought they believed Duck and Cover was a failure.
No sales of stuffed Bert toys and Bert movies, like “Duck: Uncovered!”
Excellent post, Rayne … kudos to you and all the wonderful parents who raise such great kids !
You know, I might actually give your offended mother credibility if there wasn’t so much crazyness from the liberal side that greeted every move by Bush. (I’m still waiting for all the librarian arrests to occur, and waiting, and waiting…).
I also guess you haven’t seen the many, many conservative commentators and politicians who said they had no problem with Obama’s speech.
Actually, it is just another campaign speech.
You can always find a few nuts, like Van Jones, on both sides who will say anything. But, the majority of conservatives when asked supported Obama giving the speech. Everyone of them on the Sunday shows that I saw.
It was the Dept. of Ed that caused the controversy. Had they not issued a lesson plan (which was more like a campaign rally script), no one would have said a word.
So, the women’s child was really not so smart after all. He didn’t understand the tiff or the reason behind it. He gave a very superficial response.
I am sure he also thinks that Obama made a great move by insisting that Israel strictly adhere to a ban on settlement building with no exceptions for natural growth, and had his Secretary of State say it was a total ban. Right or wrong, this hard nose push shifted Israeli’s to Netanyahu’s side thereby allowing him to oppose Obama without any domestic consequence and order settlement building. Poof! new peace talks up in smoke. Now, Obama has Israeli’s unhappy with him, Palestinians unhappy with him because they think he can’t make Israel do anything and is therefore unreliable and other Arab’s concluding the same.
Maybe he was profiling them and allowing circuits, buzz words and phrases to sub for actually thinking.
Please just ignore this tripe.
We have had enough of it for one long weekend to risk prolonging it further.
I’m surprised this particular tripe hasn’t been shown the door; they’ve been at it for at least a week and across a number of the different FDL sites.
Absence of the cogent is probably not in the list.
It’s what we do with it in reply.
The loonies aren’t afaid of what He might say to their kids. they think He is a black ogre that is going to ask all of them to leave home and come to Washington so He can eat the little darlings.
You know what’s odd? Right now, I’m listening to Nickelback’s “Burn it to the Ground”, which, while ostensibly a song about partying, is actually a song about fighting. It seems oddly appropriate to read while reading this excellent, excellent post.
This is what I’ve been waiting for since I found the Lake of Fire Dogs. I always thought the progressive voices on here were too weak, too unwilling to grab the bastards by the balls and yank until they screamed. This is what we need; strength, and anger. Why shouldn’t we be mad? They take our money, our lives, our dignity, and our hope. They have ruined a faith and perverted Christianity into some monstrous version of itself. They have brought the entire world to its knees with financial foolishness.
It is time for fury. I lived with conservatives for years- my family. I know these people are crazy. Bigoted, nightmarish freaks. I’ve always known this, and always known it would come down to fighting them- not negotiating, because as another excellent post put it, you can’t negotiate with terrorists. They cannot see the real world- it’s impossible to share a view with them, because you are quite literally not seeing the same planet.
And now it seems that everyone else has figured it out too. Bravo! I say- bravo. It’s time we told them, flat-out, that we wouldn’t take anymore.
Yes, I feel your pain. Been tired of being treated like an outcast by my ‘winger family for the last several decades.
But the scary part is when you are vindicated, because it means they are finally, truly aware of the truth and so very desperate at the same time.
Like last week, while I’m shouting at my FIL because he can’t hear me. He’s a hardcore Repub, always gives me a rash of crap about my ideology. And now he tells me he hopes that health care reform will resolve the problems he has with getting a working hearing aid, having been left nearly bankrupt by several years of medical care my now-deceased MIL needed for a long, slow chronic and mortal illness. Very, very sad that somebody had to die and somebody else had to reach poverty before the truth dawned and the come-to-Jesus moment arrived.
Damn. I’ll pray for your FIL, and for you, too. Being treated that way must have been… impossible. I admire your strength for that.
I’m a bit of a coward in that respect… I’ve not had an “outcast” feeling yet for the simple reason that I’ve never informed them. I still require them to help pay for law school, and I see no reason to disbar them of their notion that I, like them, hate black people, support Rush Limbaugh, and in general, am a terrible (great, to them) human being. They are, after all, crazy, and I see no reason to bestow upon them the gift of the truth. I’d rather finish law school first. Besides, I’m far enough away it’s not too hard to lie ’bout it.
Feels a bit wrong, but dammit, I’d rather succeed at what I want to do then sit around debating politics with people who can’t affect the country’s direction one way or another.
Thanks, appreciate your kind sentiments, but your prayers are needed for those who truly suffer. My family was a challenge at times when I was younger, and now, not. I refuse to let them have that much power in my life; they are now a wonderful teaching opportunity for my kids. I embrace the secret schadenfreude of knowing they have been reduced to a “Don’t do that” lesson.
Think of the money your family has loaned you as a tool for making others’ lives better, and you’ll see it less as a guilty burden. No need to burst their bubble at all. They’ll think you’re becoming a high-powered, big money bags lawyer, and that’s all they really need, isn’t it, a cherished illusion?
Their illusions get shattered on their own without our help. It’s kind of sad now that my FIL can’t get as feisty with me any more about political ideology. Especially since I’m helping support him now; a fellow hard-ass conservative DIL might have told him, “Ah, what a pity, but I do look forward to seeing you greeting people at Walmart…”
Thank you for that, it weirdly really does help. I’ll keep your lessons in mind.
And yes, the harshness of conservatives’ own ideology often shatters them.
Rayne, is your FIL a veteran? Because your local VA hospital should be able to test him and order him free hearing aids, as well as free batteries to use in them. The only problem is, the hearing aids may need to be serviced periodically, and you have to mail them back. That means he’ll be without the hearing aid or aids for a few weeks while they are being serviced. Hope this helps.
Thanks for a great post, and best of luck to your kids as they study hard in school. My grandparents were immigrants, and the No. 1 thing they stressed was working hard in school and getting an education. That’s part of the reason they came to America! What could be more American than that?
Thanks for asking, Anais. He’s a vet, and he’s been going through the VA, primarily because his hearing loss is service-related. But the closest VA is nearly two hours drive away from his home, he’s had major surgery earlier this year which caused problems with transportation, and he’s been through a couple sets of hearing aids now since the first of the year. I think he believes that a public option might let him deal with this problem closer to his own home, with his own doctor — and it might be more cost effective as well. At this point he’s got more faith in there being a public option than I do, at least one that would be more rational than whatever we have today.
And thanks for your comments about immigrant forebears. Most of us have forgotten we’re the progeny of immigrants and that study and hard work and individual responsibility — which Obama asks children to assume — made all the difference to this country’s trajectory. We didn’t make it to the moon and back without it.
I feel quite sorry for you that you can’t listen to any other view than your own.
As I mentioned yesterday, while reading the statements of a Chavez minister who is in charge of shutting down radio stations in Venezuala that express a different point of view than Chavez, it was genuinely sad to realize that many here, typified by your responses today, would likely cheer a similar move if done here against radio stations that don’t broadcast ideas supportive of Obama.
The actual facts remain: Obama’s speech is really a campaign style speech. The lesson plan sent to schools was not appropriate and if you are objective, you would know that if any Republican President had done the same you would have objected strongly–and right so.
Except for a few nuts, NO ONE cares that Obama is black. No one. That idea is a fantasy. Personally, I haven’t even given it a thought. And, on the contrary, it has been one of the great things about his Presidency that people have felt free to object to his policies without any consideration of his color. THAT truly has moved us beyond the race divisions. People feel they can be critical of his policies and him like any other President. He IS like any other President in that respect.
Maybe your son should have noticed that and moved into the realm of original thinking. Instead of marching to the beat of everyone else’s drum around him, said something against the grain of his peers.
Very few people here have the inclination to speak against the prevailing current of thought here. Likely, they are afraid of being ridiculed. I’ve got a thick skin and understand the ridicule. It is just part of the scene here.
But, the scene could be so much better without it.
Lastly, did you know that when G H W Bush gave his speech to school kids when he was President, he was not only criticized by Democrats, but they even had hearings about it?? Those are government leaders and not a few stray nut cases. So, I wouldn’t get feeling too superior about “Oh, how terrible the way these people are reacting, We would never do that.” You are right, you didn’t. You did worse.
Look, another troll. Mop up on Aisle 3, please.
I know damned well what happened to Bush41 and his speech. Listen to and read the speech. It’s not addressed to kids, it’s about policy, and he made the speech not inside the first 12 months of his presidency, but as the 1992 election cycle was beginning. You want me to have my kids evaluate that speech, too? It’d be borderline child abuse; they would resist sitting through it because it said absolutely nothing to kids.
Bush41 was lucky to evade a Hatch Act violation; I suspect because of the pressure from Dems he and his campaign opted not to use the video more widely for campaign purposes, thus avoiding the fuzzy line between too-late policy promotion and early reelection campaign.
And as for my son’s observation, you know jack; he’s mixed race, like me, but passes for white, like me. Maybe because of his background and appearance he can actually see how often racism pops up. A substantive number of whites are absolutely clueless as to how much a part of the fabric of their lives racism really is.
With regard to ridicule, you bring it on yourself. You literally ask for it. That’s part of YOUR scene, it’s what you want. How awful for you that you actually get what you ask for.
Wasn’t there a Bush that was reading to school kids and someone told him the terrorist attacked the world trade center and he got on a plane and headed for the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. We won’t know how that speech was going to end. Or maybe he didn’t have the ending wrote.. humm
Anyway I am happy to see so many level headed comments on the matter they really outnumber the.. others.
Its kinda funny to read the defenders of censorship where they have to come up with a reason .. other than hes black. The other reasons really are very lame and their kids have to return tomorrow to defend their parents ideas. Wouldn’t it be cool if the Tuesday kids pretended to be Zombies to the others when they return tomorrow or that they adopted political opinions. It should be an excused joke, because after all, its exactly what the others worried about happening.
I did not mind at all any of the Bushs or Reagan talking to the kids. If they gave lesson plans, I would of said WOW great idea, nice to see a president trying harder than just another speech. We sure didn’t make any fuss over other presidents doing this.
The after reading so many intelligent comments I worry about how we fix the media news system showing off minority ideas (from the others) because they are shocking attention getters. Then ignoring what the majority of the populations think. We get a 5 second sound bite saying my kids get a whippin if they skip school and are not sick. It is truly lopsided, the freaks get all the coverage and that brings out the freak that was on the fence. Its unfair but its the way News Media works.
Its funny as a kid all I would think about it Wow assembly in the GYM time. You bet we would run out of the class to do that stuff. But you give the kid an option of staying home, i would of become an other in a second.
I am just glad to see so many outnumbering the others, even if we don’t like to fight and have no voice.
Haray for our side.
I live in wingnut land and the elections season was crazy. One of my daughter’s teachers had a group of kids in the class research the candidate’s positions on various issues, requiring them to use facts with back-up, not opinions on where someone stood. They had the class raise hands on who they would vote for, McCain or Obama. Overwhelmingly McCain. Then they had the presentation of stands on issues without names attached and raised hands again. Overwhelmingly Obama. It still only cut the crap my daughter had to hear about terrorists in the white house in half, but at least it helped a little.
I blame homeschooling.
And you say “Fear and bigotry are going to make your kids unemployable in an adult work world” — actually, no.
They can always join the army.
And then they can become a cop. Or a prison guard.
Oh, I have a wickedly snarky comment I posted elsewhere, if we’re looking for blame…
Socialized medicine has already worked too, too well; now it’s coming around to bite us in the butt.
You see, vaccines for childhood illness are required by state and federal law, developed in no small part with the U.S. Center for Disease Control, assured by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, given by health care professionals licensed by the government.
And our childhood mortality rates have plummeted; children don’t die or become permanently disabled from diseases which afflicted our grandparents and great-grandparents and often killed as many as half of all infants and children.
The problem? There are more stupid children who grow up to become healthy-but-stupid adults, making a larger than natural percentage of our population. They grow up to become right-wing WATB on radio and television and whine selfishly about everything.
If only we’d left well enough alone and let them die in the cradle like the right-wingers would have us do…but no, we had to be do-goody socialists who studied hard in school and became researchers and doctors who wanted to save all children in the U.S. and around the world from childhood diseases.
[sigh] Maybe Obama ought not make that speech tomorrow after all. Some bright child might be inspired to save more of teh stoopit.
“Profiling. They’re profiling him.”
Oh, BS. Barack has established himself as an ideologue. This people don’t want him to be preaching to their kids, regardless of the subject. He is not president of all the people. I don’t really blame them.
Because of the hidden clause in the Constitution that says Democratic Presidents are not entitled to lead the entire country, but just the radical Leftists part?
Or the clause that says that Democrats need to get 99.9% of the popular vote for the election to be valid?
Or the clause that says when Republicans bring idealogical baggage, they are entitled to the reins of power, but Democrats, by virtue of being Democrats, are by definition idealogical bankrupt and therefore should not even be allowed to be on the ballot?
You know how devious Obama is…he used this to allow his the teachers in his thrall to identify the parents who don’t think he’s “their President”. The teachers and administrators now know who are the ones who are fomenting resistance to the grand socialist scheme. Soon their kids will be asked to report on the intimate details of their family life by giving a “What I did on my summer vacation” presentation. They’ll be asked to bring some item from home for “show and tell- your parents crimes”. Kids will write up projects about your job…on take your kid to work day. To allay the great Tea-Bag Separatist Revolution school kids will be encouraged to Swear an Oath to “one Nation…Indivisible” and salute a flag with an illegal a star on it that represents a foreign nation….Hawaii.
“Oh, BS. Barack has established himself as an ideologue. This people don’t want him to be preaching to their kids, regardless of the subject. He is not president of all the people. I don’t really blame them.”
…very telling comment. Indeed some people don’t want the President of the United States talking to their kids. If by some trickery he was to come across as a reasonable, sensible man and not the demon he’s been caricatured to be, the kids might realize that their parents were bigoted blowhards. That wouldn’t do at all.
These wingnut parents are worried about keeping their kids in a class where they will – horror of horrors! – hear their president speak.
As a parent, I worry about my kid sharing a classroom with kids whose parents are that mind-numbingly stupid, I don’t want any of that stupid to rub off on my kid.
I think I’ll write to my kid’s school and demand that all the kids whose parents kept them home to avoid hearing their president speak be immediately removed from regular class and transferred to remedial classes unless or until it can be determined that, despite their upbringing, they are actually smart enough to join regular classes.
While I consider the parents’ “profiling” response ridiculous, I have to say I am still waiting for Obama to stand up & show real leadership. Pragmatism and compromising are only valuable when you are still preserving your key principles. If Obama will start fighting for whatever he really believes in and will stand up to the GOP, I think some of this ridiculous behavior from the GOP will wane. Not all of it, but some.
If one kid bullies another kid, and the second kid doesn’t stand up for himself, we all know the bully sees red meat & will attack even more. Obama is not demonstrating bipartisanship by not standing up for himself (e.g., with public option, with big pharma, Van Jones, bills loaded with pork). Instead, he is being perceived as weak and lacking the willingness to take the risk to really fight for something. And the GOP sees red meat…
You hit the nail on the head. The biggest reason why the health care debate is where it is right now is that Obama did not lead on it. He turned it over to Congress, and they have botched it. Too many cooks spoil the soup.
As for the GOP, you seem to think that bipartisanship consists of the GOP signing off on a bill that is 100% Democratic. That is like me saying to you, if you go along with everything I say, then you are fair minded, but if you don’t go along with all of it, then you are biased.
There is not one Republican idea in the bill. They proposed many amendments, but none were adopted. They were not consulted in the writing of the bill, so why should they just go along with it when it contains nothing of theirs.
I really believe that if Dems wanted a bipartisan bill, they could include tort reform and get enough GOP support to keep the public option. But, that is not the game. The game is, take it or leave it. Why is Olympia Snowe wasting her time and breath? None of her ideas will ever be accepted. The trigger might get accepted by a few Dems, but most will reject it. So, why bother?
Not that anyone is interested in the other side of the coin (”Other side of the coin, what’s that?”), but that is it.
The speech was good. But, I could have done without the campaign trappings, the background ,etc. Now, every President will feel they must address the school kids, and we don’t need that. And, I hope they skip the lesson plan if they do feel the need to give a speech.
oh Rayne, so sorry I missed this thread in real time
brava, brava to you and poppa rayne !
my post-grad peanut – ‘lemme see if I have this straight, a mixed race son of a single mother boostraps himself all the way to the Presidency, and . . . ‘
Hey Lance, can you fix the first link for me? must have broken somewhere along the line and I don’t know why.
Please use this one, thanks much.
By the way, there was a successful culture jam tonight — Obama managed to get his remarks out to even more kids, did an end run around the freak-show parents.
After having my kids read the President’s speech yesterday, they tell me that their high school and middle school didn’t show the speech today during their first day back after summer vacation.
Grrr…
My son and I just happened to be talking about this about 8:00 pm EDT when Nickelodeon network’s Get Schooled program started — and lo, there’s President Obama and his speech writer Sarah Hurwitz, and they are talking about the value of education in getting a dream job.
Culture jam!!! Eff you conservative freaks, Viacom gave the POTUS a back door to your kids’ minds!
Be sure to check out GetSchooled.com, looks like it’s a broader initiative to improve school as well as get drop-outs back in school.
Viacom and Nick.com, thank you!!
~~~ModNote: First link in post repaired.~~~
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What about his African voodoo? What if he like puts a curse on ALL the Christian children right over the tee-vee? Ever think of THAT???
Well, I’ll bet you the MUSLIMS have!!!
They walk among us. You have been warned, infidels! I mean, sinners.
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Thanks much, Mod!
When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opi…..94347.html
Well if you were against that, then you should be against what the GOP did to Obama.
Why are ignorant people making a big deal about showing the speech….???
Obama is the President , elected by a majority of voting people in the United States to lead the free world…
It is disrespectful to not show our children a speech he is making to motivate students to do well in school!
“We already know you are personally teaching them fear and bigotry instead of critical thinking.”
ii guess i am one of those ppl lacking the ability of critical thinking because i dont see how not wanting my kids to have propaganda thrown at them.
it really seems like mr. pres. Obama is having trouble getting the mass public to swallow everything he wants to put in our mouth so he will simple turn the kids to his side. this scares me. it is the same thing Hitler and Joseph Stalin did. what scares me the most it it seems as if mr. Obama is trying to be like Hugo Chavez who btw owns all the Venezuelan kids.
am i really a bigot because i am concerned over what i am seeing?
I can understand children thinking it’s profiling, because they weren’t alive when it happened before, and now they’re not mature enough to research if it’s happened before. But as parents, it’s your job to give them the history behind current events – not jump on the bandwagon without all the facts.
President Bush (a white republican) received a MUCH stronger response when he spoke to school children in 1991. The General Accounting Office investigated the production, a hearing was held, and The National Education Association denounced the speech. See
http://www.washingtonexaminer……94347.html
Plainly this is about party lines, not race.