intention, you’re just determined to read the worst into this, aren’t you? “Oh no, in the lesson plan covering the President’s speech, in which he urges children to stay in school and all that jazz, teachers are instructed to ask the kids how they can help the President! Clearly he’s trying to indoctrinate them into his socialist Marxist agenda!”
Show me, please?
ETA: My interest is in learning if the right-wingers were quote-mining a sentence fragment out of an original statement that did not leave it open-ended. If you have a clear cite absolving them of this, I’d love to see it, but today I’m not interested in giving them the benefit of the doubt.
This is factually incorrect. The question meant the same thing, in the original version and in the amended version.
Pretend you are six and your teacher reads you a story about a puppy. The entire story is all about how a puppy is trying to get over a fence to reach a bone. The puppy digs, the puppy jumps, the puppy tries to find a gate. For ten minutes, you listen to all the different ways the puppy could reach the bone.
When the story is over, you are asked, “What are some ways you could help the puppy?”
Would you think that that question meant, “How could you make sure that puppy gets to the vet?” No, that would be silly. In the context of the lesson, the question obviously means how could you help the puppy get the bone.
In the story of the President’s speech, even using the original wording of the question, it was obvious what was meant by the question. Why would people pull that one sentence out and us it to argue that the President is trying to indoctrinate children? What do you think their motivation is? Do you think that this is in any way an intellectually honest debate? To pull one question out of context and then to argue that it means something that it quite obviously doesn’t is dishonest.
Captain Carrot, while I agree that intention is being very hard-nosed about this, ISTM that he’s more of a devil’s advocate than a right-winger himself. Keeping our ducks in a row is very important when confronted with an opposition as insidious and willing to lower the bar as this one, and I suspect that he views the fact that a change was made to the lesson plan is evidence that the White House’s ducks were not in a row…
No, it’s evidence that they caved to the crazy people who swallowed lies unquestioningly, just like they did with the “death panels”.
Oh, goody, now I’m accused of being paranoid because I despised Bush … you guys sure know how to advance your point of view, calling names is always so productive.
cosmosdan, again I say, what I would not want to happen is for my kid’s teacher, following a lesson plan from the Bush White House, to encourage her to “help the President”. I don’t want my kid “helping” Bush in any regard. Why is that so difficult to understand?
It gets better, now I’m not just paranoid. Despite trusting Obama, I was up in arms when Obama did it, I thought it was a very foolish move, so now I’m ridiculous.
After people were told they were paranoid and ridiculous and stupid for objecting to the lesson plan, the situation escalated. At that point, many people decided that they were being fcked with once again, and didn’t want anything to do with Obama’s address to the schools. The WH managed, with the dependable assistance of rightwing commentators, to turn a molehill into an idiotic flamefest. The WH should have followed the First Rule of Holes.
Man, I don’t understand that comment at all. My problem wasn’t that I was “unnecessarily paranoid” about Bush, it was that I wasn’t paranoid enough about Bush. He was more whacked and did more bad sh*t than in my most paranoid fantasies.
What you call reasonable doubt and questions about Bush, the right wing called paranoia. And what you call paranoia about Obama, the right wing calls reasonable doubt and questions. Casting the discussion as a “paranoid/not paranoid” dichotomy is not productive in either case.
Many people have real concerns about Obama. Now I think those concerns are unfounded and way overblown … but they don’t think so. To them, those concerns are reasonable and rational. It is in our interest to deal with them as such, and not even discuss whether they are reasonable or not. If an 80 year old man is frightened that Obama’s health care plan might impact him negatively, whether his fear is reasonable concern or “unnecessary paranoia” or the result of nasty rightwing commentators is meaningless. Doesn’t matter where he got the fear or whether it is reasonable. He has that fear, so we need to deal with it. Insulting him does not help. Dissing him as a tool of Glen Beck does not help. Brushing off his concerns does not help.
And when the left consistently brushes people off and belittles them and insults them and calls them tools, guess what happens? Their initial suspicions are confirmed and deepened. They come into the discussion maybe a bit distrustful of Obama and the left, and they leave firmly convinced that Obama and the left don’t give a sh*t about their concerns. Why? Because we’ve just proven it with our insults and how we’ve treated them … brilliant tactics, folks. Obama tells people to “shut up”, people keep saying “we don’t give a shit what you think, we won the election”, the left assumes that every bit of opposition is bogus and all claims are unfounded, and then you guys are surprised to meet serious resistance? OBAMAS POPULARITY IS DROPPING LIKE A ROCK! Wake up, friends, we’re winning the battles and losing the war.
Yeah, I can see you putting that into practice above, where you call me unnecessarily paranoid and ridiculous. :rolleyes: In any case, I promise that in the future I’ll restrict myself to necessary paranoia …
I say again, for many people, the controversy was not bogus. It was the “lesson plan” that was bogus. Right or wrong, that was their considered view, as it is mine. The lesson plan was wrong, and I was glad when the WH acknowledged that and changed it. But their changes were too little and too late, and surrounded by insult and accusations. This merely fed the fire, until people were pulling their kids out of school. Foolish on both sides.
My advice would be to stop treating every controversy from day one as though it were bogus, and everyone who disagrees with you as though they were paranoid. People keep saying “But the Right will never agree with us” … well, if you call me paranoid and stupid and ridiculous enough times, I’ll never agree with you either. Connect the dots.
PS - * First Rule Of Holes: When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.
By ‘dropping like a rock’, you mean ‘slowly decreasing, as happens to every single President for which we have the information (except Bush, since he had 9/11), largely due to Democrats and independents being angry with him for having no spine, and secondarily due to Republicans no longer giving him the benefit of the doubt’?
Oh, by the way, the way to deal with bullshit controversies is not to address them as legitimate concerns, because that makes them seem, y’know, legitimate. Dismiss them as lies Beck and Limbaugh invented for ratings, because that’s exactly what they are.
Captain, I’m not trying to read the worst into this. I’m merely a realist who knows that a large chunk of the American people will read the worst into this, and I can’t blame them …
The original lesson plan asked children to “Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.” It has since been changed by the White House to say “Write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals.”
I have no problem with the latter request, as it is focused on the question of education. If Bush had promulgated the former, I would have been up in arms. Why? Because I didn’t trust Bush at all. None. Not a bit. I read the worst into what he said, and he was even worse than that. I don’t want my kid helping him in any way at all.
Now, I’m an Obama man, myself, so I wasn’t concerned about him now making the former request.
But I’m also enough of a realist to know that if I were to get upset if Bush did something, there’s lots of folks out there who will assuredly get upset if Obama does the same thing. And that, I’m concerned about.
intention, are you going to address my last post?
“How can I help the President” means the same thing as “how can I achieve my short-term and long-term educational goals”??? Not on my planet.
Oh, good. Now I’m being dishonest …
It is a question of trust. I didn’t trust Bush one bit, and as it turned out, even that amount was too much.
Given that lack of trust, was it “dishonest” of me to suspect every single utterance that came out of Bush’s lying mouth? I think that not only was it not dishonest, it was very prudent to suspect everything he said.
What y’all seem to forget is that there are loads of folks out there who don’t trust Obama any more than I trusted Bush … and that what you see as “dishonest” they see as reasonable caution.
Take a deep breath, my friend, I am not yet ubiquitous … and heck, now that I try to answer you, I get:
OK, trying again …
No, I mean that the chances of him passing any of his signature programs (health care, Cap and Trade, immigration) are getting slimmer with each passing day, and at a very distressing speed.
The first rule of controversies is that there are no bullshit controversies.
If the workers in the business that I run are unhappy, it doesn’t matter whether their unhappiness is “real” or “bullshit”, whether it is something that they dreamed up themselves or the result of agitation from outside, whether their grievances are perfectly legitimate or totally imaginary. If they are unhappy, it is a real controversy, and it is imperative that I deal with it as such.
It won’t do me any good to tell the workers they’re stupid for being unhappy. It won’t help the situation to say they’re deceived by “lies” promoted by outside agitators. It won’t resolve the issues if I “dismiss them” for any reason.
What I need to do is to sit down with the folks and find out what their concerns really are. Then I need to address those concerns, real or unreal, truth or lies, legitimate or illegitimate. The only way out is through the controversy, I can’t go around it.
If I take your path, if I constantly dismiss their fears out of hand as being illegitimate and false and the result of scaremongers, after while no matter what I try to do they will oppose me at every turn, and as you say they “will no longer give me the benefit of the doubt” … sound familiar?
Yea, I’ve seen this cite used as an excuse to play the “Democrats are hypocrites” card, but I’ve not yet seen willing to discuss whether or not the concern over spending government money on an address directly before the campaign season (and no reports of elected Democratic officials encouraging a parental or student boycott) is the same as elected Republicans officials encouraging parents to boycott a speech because Obama is going to brainwash our children into socialism by telling them to stay in school and work hard.
Anyone want to step up to the plate? I’ve asked at least twice, in other threads, for a discussion of whether or not it’s the same.
Heh. Okay, now that was actually funny. You’re doing the same thing thing to my post that the right-wing outragers are doing in respect to Obama’s speech & optional lesson plan…cherry-picking parts of it and arguing against something that was clearly not the intent of my entire argument.
The most important part of my argument is that **IN CONTEXT **(<--------Important part!!!), the two sentences mean the same thing. Please make your case that IN CONTEXT, the two sentences have any real difference.
It is intellectually dishonest to twist people’s words into meaning something they clearly, IN CONTEXT, do not mean. If you had done that regarding a Bush speech, it would be just as dishonest.
Context, my friend. What you fail to recognize and what people have been trying to point out to you is the question in the lesson plan was asked in the context of a speech given that was about the importance of education.
Unlike the school speeches of Presidents before him, Reagan, for instance, there was no politically biased commentary in Obama’s speech. Once again, the question of how students could help the President was in the context of educational excellence; just like when George H.W. Bush (Bush daddy) appealed to school children to tell him how to achieve educational goals.
The fact of the matter is that what you keep ignoring (disclaimer: this does not mean I’m calling you ignorant whether the shoe fits or not) is that asking school children to think with regard to what’s important to America is not – in any way, shape, or form – indoctrinating them.
That you wouldn’t have wanted your child to “help” President Bush in any way says more about your biases than it does about the intent the suggestion. What exactly do you (or would anyone reasonably) expect a child to do to help a President? More than likely a child will parrot whatever universal beliefs they themselves have been exposed to on a regular basis. Anyone with an ounce of sense is going to realize that a twenty minute speech about education, or even taxes, is not going to indoctrinate a child. It takes far more influence than that and parent have that in spades.
What the speech *does *do that scares the closed-minded and spoon-fed is expose children to the idea that the President their parents abhor with every fiber of their being has and espouses reasonable ideas such as personal responsibility, integrity, and goal-setting. The speech displays the President in an intelligent and reasonable manner that contradicts the evil caricature of Hitler-Obama that the right so passionately disseminates. “Can’t let the young’uns see that; they just might question our rabid hatred of him.”
No. Let’s call it what it *really *is. You’re being defensive. To a fault.
Your reaction “I wouldn’t trust Bush to talk to my child,” to a speech about education excellence would be accurately described as slightly paranoid. You were not called paranoid, but you appear to dabble in it. What possible indoctrination can come out of encouraging a child to help a President do better for the country, particularly if you (or the child) thought that the President was not doing right by his country? Isn’t that an invitation to say, “Hey, buddy, you should do *this *instead of that,” while contributing to healthy political discourse in America?
Your tactic of ignoring context is a dishonest one. If you want to have an honest discussion about the intent of the lesson plan question, you have to include in your discussion of the lesson plan the context of the lesson. Go ahead. Give it a shot.
Yes, it’s dishonest. Because everything that came out of Bush’s mouth was not a lie, nor was it always 100% of the time politically controversial. If Bush simply told your kids to stay in school and study hard, there’s not a goddamn thing to be suspicious of. It’s what any responsible parent would and does tell their children.
I make no apologies for my opinion that Bush was a lying, manipulative, unethical bastard of a President whose half-assed educational policy was poorly implemented, but at least I’m not tin-foil enough to thinking that him speaking to my kids was going to undo all the values I teach them. To be honest, I think my teen would have relished the opportunity to tell him just what he thought of Bush’s policies.
Bullshit. We know they don’t trust Obama, but it doesn’t make it any more reasonable to question his intent outside of context with his participation of the time-honored tradition of the President addressing our nations school children. If they were reasonably cautious, they would take the opportunity to discuss the lesson with their children afterwards carefully inserting their own biases in the discussion to undo the brainwashing a twenty minute speech about education is likely to cause. :rolleyes:
Maybe to promote the idea that we have to be involved with the process to make things better. Maybe to help them begin to understand that “citizen” bears some responsibility along with representative, Senator, or president. Was there anything in there forbidding them to question the president or help him by saying they thought he was wrong about something?
Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country
Why that Kennedy was a commie bastard as well.
Context, dear lady. Since the speech was neither given nor published at the time this all came up, perhaps you could explain what the context was? Far as I can see, the context was “I’m going to give a speech to your kids, and you don’t know what I’m going to say”.
I agree that asking kids to think about what’s important to America is not indoctrination.
Asking them to “help the president” do something unspecified might or might not be …
Yes, and teachers also have it in spades.
As far as I know, this is the first presidential address to kids that includes a “lesson plan” from the Department of Education.
Now it may be a jolly good whiz-bang idea to have a DofEd “lesson plan” along with a presidential speech to kids … or it may be a perilous voyage into uncharted waters. Many people don’t like the Department of Education a bit, and feel that education is a function reserved for the states … just sayin’, not advocating here.
But when said lesson plan includes the teachers asking the kids to “help the president”, if you don’t think you’ll get major pushback from a host of people, you know nothing about this country. Having the DofEd messing with education is a political third rail, and if you’re going to do it, you damn well better pick your words very, very carefully. The White House sailed into it with an obvious lack of forethought, and paid the price for their hubris.
The issue was not the speech. How do I know? Because it began and went on long before the speech. Although it eventually became about the speech, that was only because the WH kept defending the lesson plan and telling people that they were just being stupid and silly and defensive to worry about the lesson plan …
Like that.
Please, please, Brown Eyed Girl, never put a quote in someone’s mouth. I never said “I wouldn’t trust Bush to talk to my child,” that’s a damned lie, and a particularly insidious and nasty one. I said that I would not like my daughters teach to encourage her to “help [Bush]” in some unspecified manner. That’s a very different thing.
There was no context, because there was no speech at the time. If you want to have an honest discussion, you have to discuss the lession with no context. Go ahead. Give it a shot.
Again, this is a straw man. My issue was never with the speech, I have no objection to any president speaking to the kids, it’s part of their job. My issue was with the lesson plan. Perhaps you see it as a brilliant idea for the Department of Education to request teachers of all political persuasions to ask kids to contemplate how they can “help the president” in some unspecified task … me, not so much, seems like a recipe for disaster to me. There’s going to be plenty of people, both parents and teachers, who are almost guaranteed to object to that, particularly when they don’t know what the president is going to say.
Again with the context and the speech. There was no context because there was no speech, there was nothing but a lesson plan. And I’ve never heard of a “time-honored tradition” of the President handing out lesson plans to local schools, perhaps you could provide a citation for that.
Finally, if you don’t trust somebody, it is generally reasonable to question their intent, particularly when there is no context.
Please provide a cite for the White House “telling people they were just being stupid and silly.”
Also, there was plenty of context for the one question that was cherry-picked to be criticized, even before the text of the speech was released. The entire lesson plan was released (where do you think they got the one question from?) and the theme of the speech was released.
Finally, if people have such a problem with the Department of Education and teachers having any influence over their children, they need to pull them out of public school or sit by their sides all day, every day.
The repubs are listening to Nancy Reagan when she told kids “just say no”. The repubs are going to fight everything Obama says and does. A harmless speech to kids is seen as a political opportunity. Every time they say no, it will resonate with somebody. The hope is that enough somebodies will create a movement. They are a floundering party owned by the wealthy and hoping to persuade various groups of people to fight Obama on some issues. Enough issues and they may have some political power again. The only issue they really care about is having the power to make the rich ,richer. That is achieved by getting people to vote against their own economic and social interests because some irrelevant issue pisses them off.
I am voting republican because Obama is going to talk to kids. Other presidents talked to kids. But they weren’t pushing a horrible liberal agenda to children.
Neither is he.