Before he addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress on September 9, President Barack Obama is going to be doing some communicating with another “captive” audience: Your children.
On September 8 – a day before his speech to Congress – Obama is set to deliver an address to America’s public school children. Except this “speech” is being accompanied by a hugely controversial “lesson plan” drafted by his Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, that borders on government-induced “hero worship.”
From our friends at The Voice:
Among the several controversial items in the lesson plan is for children from kindergarten to 6th grade to “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.” Teachers are also recommending to students that they should “build background knowledge about the president of the United States by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama.”
Excuse us, but WTF?
When did it become the job of the American public education system to subsidize Obama’s “cult of personality?”
Obama’s socialist plans for our nation are (thankfully) imploding all around him and this is his bright idea? To try and use public time and resources to indoctrinate a captive audience of kids?
What’s the goal here? To sway impressionable kids so they’ll “guilt” their parents into supporting his socialist agenda?
One S.C. politician is having none of it, according to The Voice. S.C. Rep. Jeff Duncan has written S.C. Superintendent of Education Jim Rex urging him to either put certain procedures in place for Obama’s address or not show it at all.
“No matter how positive the Administration’s intentions may have been, this Presidential address and especially the corresponding curriculum represent a dangerous encroachment of Presidential influence on the sovereignty of state-based education,” Duncan wrote to Rex.
We’ll go Rep. Duncan one better … South Carolina’s public school system should grant excused absences to ANY child whose parents don’t want them subjected to this socialist garbage.
We send our children to public schools to learn – not to be bombarded by Obama’s communist propaganda.
By Millage September 3, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Nice. Very smart to start ‘em while their young.
Worst part is that “dropout Jim” Rex will get political attention and money from the far-left base when he “stands up” for the President.
By Todd September 3, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Since when does wanting your children to hear the president constitute socialism? For years we have slammed the education system because the teachers don’t teach basic civics. Our voter totals have been embarrassingly low and the average citizen doesn’t really care about their elected officials. In fact the only time we hear about our officials are when they are involved in a scandal. So the President of the United States wants to address school children and hopefully inspire them to strive to be better and maybe even aspire to run for public office. Horrors! And he even goes one step further to encourage kids to help their country. My god man! What’s next???? Do we dare encourage them to vote when they turn 18? No we are much better with a dumbed down, apathetic, uneducated group of people with no role models except a philandering governor. We slam the black culture for their fashion and their thug role models. We have a president who has a stable family, a good story of success and a desire to serve the greater good (even if you don’t think it is right). Let the man speak.
By itsallaboutthegirth September 3, 2009 at 2:16 pm
isn’t this exactly what tobacco companies try to do? hook ‘em while they’re young?
By randy September 3, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Imagine the outrage if Bush had tried this!
By Barney Fife September 3, 2009 at 2:41 pm
My kids will be excused from the room and will not participate in this exercise. I am going to their principal’s tomorrow.
Socialistic asswipe!
By rhem September 3, 2009 at 3:00 pm
It’s been reported that VP Biden’s photograph has yet to be placed in any public buildings across the USA… order of Obama…interesting…
By Calm Down You Nutties September 3, 2009 at 3:39 pm
For Goodness sakes. What are you guys snorting that are making you so paranoid? Having a president challlenge students to make the country better isnt brainwashing. It is called being a patriot, being an active member of the society in which you live. I remember when a newschannel(I think it was cnn)asked people on the street to identify a picture of Bush and some people couldnt even pick out their president, much less their vice president. And people have a problem with students learning about their presidents (both past and present). Its called education…no wonder we are always ranked at the bottom.
Pulling students out of class so they dont hear the president speak…how ignorant. If you dont agree with the president, take the time to explain your views and why you hold them instead of blinding them to the idea that there are opposing views. If you want to talk about brainwashing, isnt that it? Not to mention the stigma of pulling your child out of class.
Why are conservatives always so angry?
By mandro September 3, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Why are liberals so angry would be a better question, calmly?
Wasn’t it Obama who urged “his people” to “get in people’s faces?”
Wasn’t it a Obamacare supporter who literally gnawed off another counter-protestor’s finger yesterday?
Terms like Nazis, terrorists, and mobs were employed by Democrats pols to describe law-abiding citizens exercising their free speech rights.
Anger, indeed!
By yarrrrr September 3, 2009 at 4:08 pm
“Pulling students out of class so they dont hear the president speak…”
FU… did you write “troll right wing blogs” on the letter you wrote to yourself about how you can help Obama…
By Doyle September 3, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Randy, George Bush did do this in September of 1989. He gave a 15 minute speech, during school hours, encouraging kids not to do drugs.
By another e-visit from chitown September 3, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Using school children is standard operating procedure up here in Chicago where Richie Daley, a most corrupt mayor, uses kiddies as a back drop for lots of his sleazy plans.
The Daley administration took a week of school time up here to propagandize about the Olympics as part of Daley’s campaign to get the 2016 Games. We don’t have sports programs in the schools here and one of the most dangerous places in some neighborhoods are schools where kids get killed about once a week. But we can take time to propagandize.
And of course Arne Duncan is a protege/mentee/stooge of Mayor Daley.
By randy September 3, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Doyle,
When George Bush spoke in 1989, liberals were outraged. Dick Gephardt railed against Bush and accused Bush of politicizing the classroom and indoctrinating captive children.
Bush was speaking out against drugs. Obama isn’t able to speak out against drugs with any credibility has he has smoked dope and snorted coke–look where it got him–to the White House!
Obama plans to push his taxpayer “paid” volunteerism Americorps and plug his domestic agenda, unlike Bush.
By Calm Down You Nutties September 3, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Bless. I upset people. I guess reading varying “news” sources and commenting makes me a troll. I look at it as trying to be informed. But I guess people who want to pull their children out of class so they dont hear differing viewpoints would not understand. And the FU…classy and what an articulate way to form an argument.
Terms like Nazi and terrorist? Wasnt it Rep. Wally Herger (R) who praised someone for calling themselves a “right wing terrorist”? And wasnt it conservatives who called the health care reform “Nazi” and who had posters of Obama with a Hitler mustache?
None of that really matters. Tit for tat. It is not part of a real debate, nor does it move the country in a good direction. Isnt all this the problem? Instead of hearing the other side and actually debating, people try to yell over each other, name call and basically close their minds.
By seymour September 3, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Calmy,
What kind of depraved person would literally bite off the finger of an old man?
Answer- a “tolerant” Liberal Obama-supporter!
By ohara September 3, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Whoever it was that accosted the 65 year old needs to be locked up.
When it gets to the point that either side cannot control themselves-and from the AP reports all the demonstrators seemed fine until the aggressor crossed the street-then you need to take an unbiased look & lock up the whack jobs.
It only takes one idiot to turn what should be a normal part of free speech in a democracy into mayhem. Long story short-if you can’t control yourself in public-don’t leave the house. We are all Americans here. Enough of the obnoxious behavior from any side. Protection of our 1st amendment rights means that we hear everyone, regardless of whether we agree with them or not.
As far as the Obama whatever it is that he’s doing, I’ll wait & reserve judgment until I’ve seen it. Doesn’t mean I like the guy, just want to see what he is doing. If it’s a history thing-great. If not, well that’s easy enough to fix. Oh yeah, & I’m a registered INDEPENDENT, in case any of you all think this is partisan.
By NoToObama September 3, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Last thing we need is that know nothing in the schools. He can’t run an auto company, he sure can’t teach my kids!
By Katherine Jenerette September 3, 2009 at 8:43 pm
All four of my children attend South Carolina public schools here in Horry County and I have been given the option to opt-out of the Obama for them.
I declined. They will watch what the President of the United States has to say. I have no big problem with that. Small ones yes, big ones? So what?
I don’t like this administrations policy on anything and I go ballistic over Federal Power grabs like taxes, healthcare, bailouts and education – but how do I teach my children about the big-government-enemy if I hide the big-government-enemy from them? I want them to see it face-to-face. And I want to hear what Big-Government has to say to my kids.
That’s the point that their father and I take over.
We teach them that Big-Government is worse than the swine flu; it just tries to look pretty and talk’s nice but will choke you to death if you let it get too close.
I need a needle point hanging in the dinning room: “Hand wipes don’t work for liberals – voting conservative every chance you get is the only way to stop the disease of liberals from spreading.”
Anyway, if the worst thing that my four children get in South Carolina Public schools is a speech from President Obama – I can deal with that.
What worries me more than a 15-minute speech by the Obama? Math, science, history, biology, language arts and other stuff that’s being taught to them each day with some curriculum developed in Columbia or Washington, DC.
I can handle the Obama’s at the kitchen table with my kids.
That’s all for now.
Katherine
P.S. My two oldest just got back from a High School Cross Country meet; I asked them about this Obama speech. By the blank looks I’m sure that they will give his ‘little-big-government-pep-rally’ their undivided attention next week.
By Interloper September 3, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Many of the people complaining about Pres. Obama’s speech to schoolchildren are, frankly, bigots who are afraid their children will not grow up to be as racist as they are.
Ohara, the 65-year-old, an anti-health care reform protester who is on Medicaid, was the aggressor. He assaulted a smaller man, knocking the fellow down.
http://bit.ly/4tqNZq
By Paul September 3, 2009 at 10:14 pm
My pinkie, my pinkie, my kingdom for a pinkie but I guess he has that terrible Medicare a “Single-payer health care insurance” what a hypocrite. Did the little pinkie cry “Wee-wee-wee!” all the way home? It real should have been his right pinky finger that would have been a better story. They are haters not debaters.
By Todd September 3, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Just out of curiosity, how many posters here actually do something in the public schools. I am not even talking about giving your life to help students gain an education, I am just talking about showing up and helping mentor a child who is living in a home with one parent. It is very easy to stand around and complain. It takes real guts to get in and help with a solution.
By Concerned Mother September 3, 2009 at 10:40 pm
The memo from Dept. of Ed. to all schools was terribly worded and definitely aimed at propaganda. NOW, read this article web link about the two books children are required to read about BO…shades of Cuba come to mind:
http://www.puma08.com/2009/09/02/sept-8th-here-are-two-of-the-books-on-obama-your-kids-are-expected-to-read/
Parents should keep the kids home Tuesday! Demand to know if their children are being forced to read these books and OBJECT!
By madcock September 4, 2009 at 12:47 am
Obama is floundering badly. He has done a terrible job of selling the need for health care reform and his own agenda. His poll numbers are plunging.
He should get down on his knees and THANK GOD for nut jobs like yourself and your fellow John Birchers for going bananas over this.
As Bill Clinton proved, you can get away with anything when the voters see the alternative as a bunch of right-wing whack jobs.
As a Dem, albeit a very frustrated one, thank you from the bottom of my heart for this. You truly are, in the words of V.I. Lenin, a Useful Idiot.
By Interloper September 4, 2009 at 4:53 am
Pres. Obama will give a relatively short speech to students solely about education. The text will be available Monday. Contrary to someone’s claim on this thread, no books are involved. A lesson plan suggests students consider what their goals are and how they can use the school years to achieve them.
I believe that children reared to be bigots will have a hard time in a society that will be majority minority for most of their lives. Apparently, Right Wing parents do not give any thought to the fact that their children will live any a more diverse society than they have, or they would not encourage hatefulness such as boycotting a talk by the first African-American president.
By Stop Pimpin' Your Kids September 4, 2009 at 7:11 am
Where have you been, SC citizens without a clue? Explotation of SC school children is business as usual. Since the early 90′s children in SC high schools have been forced daily to watch Channel 1- a fast-paced, “current events” minute with nine additional minutes of commercials for expensive consumer items targeted at teens- in exchange for some crap tvs bolted high on the walls in SC classrooms. This is Orwellian! SC high school principals pimp out their campuses with junk food and soda machines which charge exorbitant prices for non-nutritious foods to captive teens; remember the “Victory” brand of crap food from 1984? Thanks to the federal RTI from the 1994 IDEA Act, at this moment in our worst SC schools in Charleston County, elementary public school principals are hoping that your child will do poorly on standardized tests they are about to give your child(sometimes without your knowledge) so they can claim federal funds by designating your child as an “at-risk” child(again without your knowledge)so they can quietly have him/her shuffled off for “rememdiation” with other “handicapped” students. Remember Winston’s remediation in 1984? Again, Charleston County employs district-level workers whose job it is to have Autistic children’s diagnoses overturned because they are expensive to serve. The MINISTRY of LOVE knows best. Your schools are not “public schools;” they are GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS vying for Federal money. Obama is just an almost amorphous, telegenic face to attach to the already-extant machine so the masses to whom he appeals will swallow more easily during this economic disaster. Bon appetit!
By Mike September 4, 2009 at 8:46 am
What happened to all the talk about patriotic support for a president during a time of war? You people are such hypocrites. You deserve to remain in your white-trash, never-graduated-from-high-school, educated-by-Fox-News ignorance.
By jimbo September 4, 2009 at 9:59 am
I really don’t have a problem with Obama speaking to our schoolkids once in a great while. Doesn’t seem like a big deal for the kids to hear their president. But the part about having kids write letters to themselves about how they can “help the president” is just creepy in a Latin American dictator/cult of personality sort of way.
Hey, maybe they can help “El Presidente” by turning in their parents to the White House if they hear them speaking ill of the administration’s health care reform policies at the dinner table.
By randy September 4, 2009 at 10:03 am
Mike,
You know the dems are in trouble when they are forced to resort to cannibalism… Maybe you guys should stop recruiting cannibals–
Hope and change,eh?
By Morons Shouldn't Vote September 4, 2009 at 10:04 am
@ Calm Down You Nutties – “some people couldnt even pick out their president, much less their vice president”.
People who can’t pick out their president are also people who do NOT vote. Let’s keep it that way. Ideally, morons would never vote. If you think that not wanting your child forced to watch a political message is Nutty, and if you can’t do a more effective job than the president of instilling educational values in your child, then perhaps you could also join the morons (if you haven’t already) and stop voting.
By Statesman September 4, 2009 at 11:14 am
WWJD? If people would read the Bible and live their lives based on Christ’s “Sermon on the Mount” we wouldn’t act like such ignorant idiots.
By Glorybe1929 September 4, 2009 at 1:16 pm
This is a free country….At least that’s what we parents are trying to teach our children. There are Constitutional rights such as “free speech”, [we are excercising it now with our blogs]. When we find the government is trying to “mess with many of our Constitutional Rights” we may, I say we may, or may not, wish to do something about it. Protest or walk away or pray[we can still have a bible in our hands]. When we find people in the President’s cabinet, etc., 37 czars,[not all maybe] that have had communist , and socialist leanings or actually are of that persuasion, we may take a closer look….we are a free country. Who vetted these men?? We’d like to know…where is the transparency in his admistration that he [ Obama] talked about?? We’d like to hear from him on these , very important people who are advising our President. We need to know more about these things, rather than the indoctrination of our children. We can explain that to them but “who is advising him and did he know before hand, who he was[v] getting??? If he did , why does he have these people who do not hold the values that “We the Peoeple ” have in OUR United States of America??? WE will find out.! Speak up Mr. President and ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS. on what’s important to “We the People who elected you” You didn’t get the Presidency alone and you won’t stay unless you’re in line with God Almighty. “One Nation Under God”. “In God We Trust.” Remember? HE [God ] will not be mocked!
By Yeah Doggie September 4, 2009 at 1:20 pm
I thought this site was about Lindsay Lohan?
By craig September 4, 2009 at 2:17 pm
The way conservatives are making a mockery of civil discourse is the surest way to big brother. The right has gone so far off into never never land that power could be seized by a true nutcase. In your heart you know I’m right.
By baker September 4, 2009 at 5:57 pm
I know Will is on the pretty far right, but I’m a little surprised all hot and bothered over this. Usually, Will comes through with a little more rational approach to national political talk, seems to me. But the suggestion that Barack Obama intends to indoctrinate American kids with communist ideology is just goofy on a number of levels.
By Norris Hall September 5, 2009 at 11:34 am
This whole things is a big double standard. It’s OK for a Republican president to addressed a national audience of students and toot his horn and push his political position but it’s not ok for Obama to tell students to stay in school?
On November 14, 1988, President Reagan addressed and took questions from students from four area middle schools in the Old Executive Office Building. The speech was broadcast live and rebroadcast by C-Span, and Instructional Television Network fed the program “to schools nationwide on three different days.”
In his speech to students and the question and answer session following Reagan
1. stressed the importance of low taxes and free trade. Next he
2. stressed the importance of religion in our nation.
3 touted the economic achievements of his administration ,
4.put in a plug for the line item veto,
5. told the students that lowering taxes increases revenue
6. boasted of his administrations aid to Negro colleges
7. and told students that if guns were banned, burglars would be “celebrating forevermore”
Go ahead. Read Reagan’s entire Televised speech to the students here at the Ronald Regan Presidential Library archives.
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1988/
By w-s September 5, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Our children must be protected from Obama’s speech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adiLJxayfg8
By ohara September 5, 2009 at 4:53 pm
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” — Thomas Jefferson
There are a lot of things about the Obama agenda I don’t like.
This doesn’t happen to be one of them, since Reagan, Bush 1 & 2 all addressed US students in much the same format. Nail him on his policies (there’s enough material out there) but stop swatting at flies.
This isn’t about politics, this is about education-an area SC should attempt to look at, and maybe we could do that in this century?
The children in this country spend more years in school than their European & Oriental counterparts, and know less.
The results from the last survey are disgusting. From Still At Risk: What Students Don’t Know, Even Now, Feb, 2008, a survey of US high school seniors showed:
57% did not know when the Civil War was fought.
Only 50% of students knew the purpose of the Federalist Papers
49% did not know the focus of Joseph McCarthy’s investigations in the 1950s.
Almost 20 percent of 1,200 respondents to a national telephone survey did not know who our enemy was in World War II, and more than a quarter think Columbus sailed after 1750. Half do not know what the Renaissance was.
http://www.commoncore.org/_docs/CCreport_stillatrisk.pdf
This was a missed opportunity. Why didn’t the talking heads use this angst to go after Obama’s support of a lousy system of education that is backed by a corrupt teacher’s union, the ones who bear a good deal of the responsibility for this mess? This ‘much ado about nothing’ is from the same people that stand idly by & watch their kids’ school scores sink like a rock when compared to those in other countries, and then are appalled to find out we are losing wealth to other nations.
This was the wrong place & wrong time for the old worn out Orwellian argument. What a waste of time & energy-over nothing.
By dana September 5, 2009 at 9:16 pm
One Question: How will a kindergardener comprehend this entire deal when they are learning to read as well as their 1,2,3′s?…someone explain that one please!!!
By Lisa September 6, 2009 at 12:14 am
I think that this has gotten out of hand, students should be able to listen to the President.