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StumbleSun editorial:
Schoolyard bullies
Conservative uproar prevents students from watching Obama’s inspiring message
Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009 | 2:08 a.m.
Right-wing reactionaries spent the past several days spreading fears and lies about the back-to-school speech President Barack Obama gave Tuesday. The speech was intended for the nation’s schoolchildren, but conservative fear mongers claimed he was trying to “indoctrinate” children with his “socialist agenda.”
Although it is difficult to determine how effective their message was, it is clear that the mean-spirited partisan attacks had an impact. There were parents who pledged to keep their children home from school Tuesday, and many school administrators across the country, including in Clark County, refused to show the speech. (Some officials said it would be “disruptive.”)
They all should be ashamed. Because of their actions, students missed an inspirational speech and a rare presidential address directly to students. Parents and teachers should have been thrilled with the president’s message. He called for students to take personal responsibility for their education.
“You cannot drop out of school and just drop into a good job,” Obama told students. “You’ve got to train for it and work for it and learn for it.”
The president encouraged students to pay attention to their teachers, listen to their parents and grandparents, and work hard.
“The future of America depends on you,” he said. “What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.”
It is unbelievable to think that this message could have caused such an uproar. Work hard in school? Pay attention to your teachers and listen to your parents?
His message could have been uttered by a Republican president. In fact, in 1991 George H. W. Bush told students to “make it your mission to get a good education.”
People who opposed showing students Obama’s speech should be embarrassed. They have acted like schoolyard bullies, intent on browbeating the public and tearing down the president. Sadly, many schools succumbed — and the students suffered because of it.
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Too many Americans have failed to understand the basic premises of education put forth yesterday by President Obama. For many the focus is getting the kids to school, in school and out of school 18 years later with as few hastles as possible. Advising and counseling their youngsters about the importance of a quality education is not in the play book. They want the minimal effort, hence their kids give the minimal effort and the nation suffers.
While many parents certainly must struggle with the need to earn a living and putting food on the table, that is not an excuse for not being fully involved in the education of their child. Too few spend time determining if there is homework to be completed and assisting with it. Too few take the time to teach their children the basics before entering school for the first time; things like learning numbers, the alphabet, colors and simple common things like that.
But when it comes to responding to poor grades or progress reports woe upon the teacher and the school; it is someone else who has failed to educate the child. Discipline is not their parental responsibility...the teacher should be able to control his/her class. Blame the teacher that is the easy route.
Parents were not interested in the speech because they feared some great political plot to indoctrinate their child into some imagined "..ism" like socialism, communism, liberalism, Muslinism, etc. etc. They heard and believed the political rants of commentators on cable news and swallowed it without first thinking and investigating it for themselves.
Better their kid concentrate on being a big time actor, rap star or super athlete than think about a fundamentally sound education first. The president expressed it very well when he said that such dreams might never be achieved by students. In other words dreaming that your child will be the very famous rich super athlete is a pipe dream that will vanish and the child will have to rely on a good educaton for an honest living.
The speech you heard yesterday was not the speech Obama first planned on giving. I personally care about nothing Obama says and if I had a young child would not want my child exposed to Obama's lies and distortions.
Despite the liberal agenda of Greenspun and the Sun, the votes don't lie. Obama was the most liberal Senator in the Senate. So calling him a socialist is not exactly a stretch. Maybe we should have Van Jones tell the children about 9/11.
Vsestini, I beg to differ. You wrote "Parents were not interested in the speech because they feared some great political plot to indoctrinate their child into some imagined "..ism" like socialism, communism, liberalism, Muslinism, etc. etc. They heard and believed the political rants of commentators on cable news and swallowed it without first thinking and investigating it for themselves."
In responding to this editorial by generalizing across the board about those of us who did NOT agree with the President's actions or the agenda sent to schools in conjunction with the speech announcement, you did EXACTLY the same thing that you are accusing us of doing - you didn't get the facts and didn't think about what you are saying.
I DID listen to the news (ALL of the channels, since it is obviously almost impossible to get unbiased reporting in either direction) - I read the information available online and I went to the whote house's website to verify for myself what could be found about the speech ahead of time. I am a college educated, thoughtful individual with a great deal of concern for what is happening now in government, and I disagreed wholeheartedly with the agenda put out by the white house in this instance.
Does that make me a schoolhouse bully? Of course not. Am I the ONLY person on the planet smart enough to think before I make a decision? Of course not. Does the fact that the president is cool, 'of color' or moving fast make him right all the time? Of course not.
What's important here is NOT generalizing wildly to try to point fingers. It's understanding that WE are ultimately responsible if this goes badly. I for one do not plan to assume that just because a cool president wants to do something that it's always going to be right.
And for the record, I am also not going to assume that just because you called all of us who disagreed 'schoolyard bullies' that you are ignorant, prejudiced or a raving liberal lunatic.
I don't plan to follow ANYONE blindly - maybe you should consider that an option next time you decide to sweep millions of your fellow Americans into a single poorly determined category and assume that you understand everyone else's mindset.
In 1991, Bush gave a speech similar to Obama's in front of high school students.
The Democrats went crazy. They held Congressional hearings on why Bush would do such a thing.
The Washington Post ran a front page story against it.
Did the Sun have a reaction to that?
No....BECAUSE IT IS ALL ABOUT POLITICS.
"I disagreed wholeheartedly with the agenda put out by the white house in this instance"
Disagreed about telling kids they need to work at school? Well, I'm not surprised. Seems to be plenty of parents out there these days with the same "agenda" of their own- the one vsestini writes about. I'm not saying that's yours, but what are you talking about when you talk about his "agenda"? His agenda was telling kids to work at their educations, for goodness sake! How could anyone who's listened and paid attention have thought Obama would say anything other than that in a speech to schoolchildren?
"The Democrats went crazy" But how many parents went crazy and kept their kids home and threatened to sue and made the ridiculous fuss that we saw this time?
Keeping information from people is absolutely anti-education. Whatever the president said or you thought he was going to say, the "educated" thing to do would be to listen to it and critique it. That's what education is all about: critical thinking. The problem is that too many parents seem to think it's about teachers opening up their kids' skulls and shoving in information. That's not how it works. A frightening number of parents don't seem to grasp that it actually takes work and effort, and, yes, actual THINKING for kids to learn. And because a minority of very loud parents are resistant to thinking themselves, we have the craziness we saw around this excellent, badly-needed, long-overdue speech.
Where the liberals that support this President go wrong is in believing that anyone who is opposed to him and his policies is an extreme right winger. That's a distortion of truth. There is a growing segment of Americans who are fed up with the intrusive politics of this President,his administration and the Congress.
"The speech you heard yesterday was not the speech Obama first planned on giving."
You have a super-secret copy you mind sharing with us, or are you just spraying cheez-whiz into the wind again?
"Obama was the most liberal Senator in the Senate."
Robert, Senator Russ Feingold and Senator Bernie Sanders (who is a REGISTERED Socialist) would have something to say about that lie.
jlb101:
Another vote for willful ignorance.
SgtRock:
Another voice in the chorus that says someone else's bad acts excuse my own.
"Whatever the president said or you thought he was going to say, the "educated" thing to do would be to listen to it and critique it. That's what education is all about: critical thinking."
Could't have said it better myself. Webmaven take note; you missed a golden opportunity to add to your child's education and understanding of the world.
You could have had your child listen to the speech and afterwards you could have sat down with him and discussed it. You could have explained to your child why you think the President was wrong (although I don't understand what you find objectionable about "work hard and stay in school").
Instead, you have taught your child that the way to confront ideas and opinions different from your own is to remain ignorant of them. You have taught your child that you can condemn something without knowing what it is. You have taught your child that the way to fight ideas is not with other, better ideas, but with bluster and intransigence.
You say you don't want to follow anyone blindly. Fine, but don't you think your child should do the same? You have demonstrated to your child that you are willing to condemn what someone says before he says it. You've told your child that the President's politics are wrong without telling him why or even what those politics are.
At what point do you plan on allowing your child to think for himself?
Teacher;
Well said.
Obama is not a socialist? Well, I'm certainly relieved. At least he's not an agrarian reformer like Mao. You leftists are full of Mao's Dung.
John F.,
Asking the usual crew of conservative know nothings on this and the Review Journal comments section to think is asking for the impossible. Asking them to allow their children to develop their critical thinking skills would mean the children would have to live elsewhere as they cannot learn to think with that infernal talk radio and FOX News racket going on all the time.
Making something of yourself.
There's a concept.
Start with opportunity (life). Toss in some freedom to do what's right (Constitution). Add punishment for doing what's wrong. (Feedback steers organisms.) Stimulate to learn.
Now exactly what did Mr. Obama do or say that is soooo hooorrrribbblleee?
Did he start a war to avenge his daddy?
Did he stuff science so his holy boys could profit?
He asked for life to develop and prosper. He sought the best for our country.
Isn't America worthy of our every effort to build? Especially after the abysmal performance by the coke and booze boy from Maine?
This thread gets funnier by the hour. I guess stressing the value of hard work and responsibility is no longer something that we should teach our young people....
At least that's the message that I see from PvtRock, mikegino, Houstonjac, webmaven, jlb101 and others.....Wow!
Of course, maybe the belief that Obama is a socialist means that no school children should ever be forced to hear what he has to say... I guess those who believe that also believe that all the bad and evil things in the world, and all the false information out there will simply go away if people are never exposed to it.....particularly our children.
Hmmmmm.....The belief being that "it can't hurt you if you don't know anything about it.."
When you think about it, Obama is an amazing guy. He, unlike anyone I have ever known or read about, can completely indoctrinate millions and millions of children in the span of one short speech. He makes Hitler look like an up start...
JohnF, teacher, vsestin and a few others....
Thank you for your comments. Of course, I'm sure you realize that you're literally attempting to push back an ocean of ignorance with only a broom...
I see mschaffer has weighed in with his morning name-calling. Has to mean a sign of intelligent life on his planet.
rusty57,
When you actually add value to a discussion I will be the first to acknowledge it. So far a stopped clock has been correct more often than you have, not that you understand this.
Until the political right rejects their anti knowledge stance they deserve nothing but contempt and ridicule.
"You leftists are full of Mao's Dung."
Apaarently, mikegino, to you anyone to the left of Newt Gingrich is a raving socialist.
Never mind that many liberals are angry at Obama for governing from the middle - he's a socialist because he's not a Republican.
That seems to be the logic you're using.
The dittoheads are regurgitating the hate-talk radio party line almost verbatim.
I can't wait til health care reform passes and these tin-foil hat kooks, Birthers, Birchers, bigots and hannitized dittoheads hunker down in their rat-holes to lick their wounds.
I hope Obama has the internment camps ready to round-up these people when the time is ripe.
That's why Van Jones quit, he's going to head up the internment program, along with Bill Ayres, and the newly brainwashed children will run the future death panels.
It is going to be awesome! Glen Beck look-out!
mschaeffer: I was going to add what SgtRock added, that the dems called for congressional investigations when Bush41 did the same thing. Its all politics. Surprised you don't KNOW that.
mred: Actually Van Jones got out-ed because he was a green jobs czar without ever having created one (typical of the specie) and a 9-11 "truther". Name-caller also comes to mind.
DouglasDemocrat - do your research and you won't sound so uneducated. Obama was rated the most liberal senator in 2007 based on his voting record by the National Journal. Even if you argue that one or two senators are more left-wing, this still makes Obama a lefty, not a centrist. Thus I drag out my Obama joker poster once again.
The National Journal?
You're citing one of the most right-wing publications in the country to back up your argument? A publication that included votes on ethics rules (which should not be scored as a partisan left vs. right issue) and not based on a representative sample (of the 99 votes the NJ scored, Obama was not present for 1/3 of them because he was campaigning)?
It is to laugh.
Douglas: Do you mean not voting or voting "present" keeps you from being at the bottom of the barrel?
Can you give me a laugh cue?
DouglasDemocrat - I will be happy to add your face to the Obama joker poster. Obama is a socialist - plain and simple. Those who call him a centrist are liars. The last time any Republican was called to the White House for a discussion on health care reform was in April. Obama is all about the Nancy Pelosi left-wing agenda. How many czars do we have now? The answer is 30. All unappointed, all unvetted.
When Obama bothers to show up to vote (he has a problem with that in Illinois as well) he votes lefty every time. The votes don't lie.
"Obama is a socialist - plain and simple."
Only for someone who obviously flunked Political Science 101.
As they said in the Princess Bride "You keep using that word. It does not mean what you think it means."
And rusty, the problem with the National Journal's analysis is that it's methodology is flawed. How did they score the votes where Obama was absent from the chamber (you can't vote "present" in the U.S. Senate)? How were the scores weighted - is he being compared to Senators who voted on all 99 bills, or only with respect to the same bills he voted on? How were the votes on the ethics rules scored (if you voted yes, is that a liberal position)?
DoulasSocialist - You are now officially included on the Obama Joker poster for being so naive, uneducated and a general dolt. Your hero is probably Nancy Pelosi who gives you wet dreams on a nightly basis.
I had no problem with Obama giving the speech.
I just say it is OK for people to protest the speech. It is their right to do so.
In 1991, the Democrats held hearings on why Bush gave a similar speech to high school gradutes.
If you are going to call the Obama protestors nuts then you got to call the Democrat congression delegation in 1991 nuts, too.
"If you are going to call the Obama protestors nuts then you got to call the Democrat congression delegation in 1991 nuts, too."
Did the Congressional Delegation accuse Bush 41 of trying to "indoctrinate" children?
Did Democratic politicians go on TV and tell people to keep their kids out of school to avoid exposure to Bush 41's speech?
Did the call for investigations come BEFORE or AFTER the speech was given?
Until you can answer those questions, and cite sources to back it up, you're comparing apples to egg rolls...again.
Repooplican,democrap.It dosent matter what party there with,they are gonna do what they think is best from there party instead of whats best for the country!!! Those 76 men that signed there names with the thought that they could be beheaded have to be rolling in there graves the way mortal men have turned there ideas into!START DOING WHATS RIGHT FOR THE COUNTRY INSTEAD OF WHATS RIGHT FOR YOUR PARTY!!! I WOULD REALLY LIKE A REASON TO START VOTEING AGAIN,BUT UNTILL WE GET PEOPLE OF MORAL VALUES,INSTEAD OF HOW RICH CAN YOU MAKE ME ALONG THE WAY OUR COUNTRY WILL CONTINUE TO FALTER!!!
Obama = Socialist Joker.
It is very clear why people are upset at the thought of him indoctrinating their children. Perhaps we can get Van Jones instead to tell us his theories on 9/11?
I thought President Obama's speech was inspiring for kids (adults too) in these difficult times. For school boards, individual schools or ignorant parents to bar this speech from kids in this country is pathetic. Trust me, when some of these kids turn out to be losers, their parents will blame everyone else, certainly not themselves. Some people simply should not breed if they cannot encourage their offspring, or let someone who knows what they're talking about do it, to be better human beings and aspire to make something of their lives, no matter what their background.
I laugh at these trolls coming onto these threads vying for attention, acting like fools. They must be sent over by Sherm at the RJ just to disrupt adult conversations. Maybe Sherm should pay them more than a nickel per post so they're not so annoying. Yes, you know who you are, and I'm sure y'all will have some snide comment coming. Poor, pathetic trolls, even their mommies can't love them.
I am glad Moogie was inspired by the President's speech to the kids.
I am and was not inspired... Politicians have been trying to inspire me most of my life. How many time have you been told how inspiring a politician is, then later find out that the politician is self serving and corrupt. I think the last politician to truly inspire me was John F. Kennedy. I was so inspired, I joined the Army and was shipped to Viet Nam. There I got enough inspiration to last me a lifetime.
If a politician wants to be a leader, than they need to lead by example. Unfortunately few politicians turn out to be leaders. They tell you what you want to hear then do what they want. They are only interested in their agendas and getting elected.
The real "Schoolyard bullies" are the politicians who use children to further their agenda and political careers.
It is fun to see the double speak from the koolaid drinkers when they are confronted facts.
LarryVegas: "The real "Schoolyard bullies" are the politicians who use children to further their agenda and political careers."
Those kids can't vote and Obama has already reached the top career-wise. What was in it for him?
Alf: immortality. Afterall, he's the new Messiah. Would you kindly let the White House know that we could use a few more loaves and casks of wine.
The speech went off great, and Limpbaugh, who has no children, looked like a ugly troll guarding a crumbling castle.
This clown for a president said to "judge me by the people I surround myself with" Well it figures,It's called running with the pack!
That speech should be given every year by any present and future P.O.T.U.S....Kids need to be liable for their actions and need to be reminded not only by the President but by society and especially their parents. It has not been stressed enough to this generation or even the previous generation, that actions are based on what you do and not because of someone else's fault.