"Republicans have been in an uproar recently over video footage of children at a New Jersey elementary school singing the praises of President Barack Obama. The outrage has been fueled mainly by a constant drumbeat from conservative media. But on Friday it boiled over into the realm of political opportunism when the Republican National Committee sent out a fundraising appeal calling the episode an “indoctrination of our nations… children” and “fanaticism.”
“Friend,” RNC Chairman Michael Steele wrote, “this is the type of propaganda you would see in Stalin’s Russia or Kim Jong Il’s North Korea. I never thought the day would come when I’d see it here in America.”
Alas, such “propaganda” has not been limited to despots, dictators and the Obama White House. As a savvy source points out, back in 2006 children from Gulf Coast states serenaded First Lady Laura Bush with a song praising the President, Congress, and Federal Emergency Management Agency for their response to – of all things – Hurricane Katrina. The lyrics were as follow:
Our country’s stood beside us People have sent us aid. Katrina could not stop us, our hopes will never fade. Congress, Bush and FEMA People across our land Together have come to rebuild us and we join them hand-in-hand!
The event took place at that year’s White House Easter Egg Roll and included roughly 100 children from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. President Bush, it seems, wasn’t in attendance during the song itself. But he was there earlier, when the First Lady read the book, Will You Be My Friend: A Bunny and Bird Story by Nancy Tafuri, to the children.
“After the reading,” the Wall Street Journal reported at the time, “Mr. Bush asked, ‘Did you like this book? Does it tell you about what people can do to help other people, what bird did to help bunny? Be kind to him and give him shelter.’”
The weather that day was described as a “chilly rain” which must have seemed appropriate given the fact that the Gulf Coast children were actually thanking the administration for its feeble response to the hurricane."
Bah. Evil One quite clearly lauched this thread to bait people and then yell at them for hypocracy if they didn’t happen to meet his strict standard for sanctimonious outrage. I like people to be happy, so I gave him exactly what he desired, and I’m sure others did too.
“Evil and misguided” for not being sufficiently sanctimonious for you? Boo fucking hoo.
Flag pledges, fuss about pins, praying to cardboard cutouts, songs about your current president, the very term unAmerican; United Statesians have always worn their hearts on their sleeves when it comes to expressing love of country. I cannot imagine the term unCanadian catching on or a teacher dedicating a song to Stephen Harper (for, say, Evangelical History Month) but I’m not surprised to hear this coming from the US. This is not indoctrination, this is par for the course. Singing a song for George Bush would also be par for the course, although I’d be puzzled and confused as to why anyone would want to craft such an ode.
I think what the teacher did was stupid, she was abusing her authority, and should be disciplined. I haven’t seen a single liberal defend what she did. But I don’t feel like going all Beck over this and start frothing and crying until I see that it was anything more than one lone nut rather than a policy of the school.
I hadn’t heard about that, but maybe it would be better addressed in another thread. This topic relates to the current President of the United States, an office which I’m pretty sure implies A-list membership.
I’ve been around the board for seven years now. It didn’t used to be a “Daily Kos” convention back then, but it pretty much is now, you’re right. But it’s still by far the best board I’ve found as far as content, intelligent participation and moderation.
I don’t feel like I’ve seen a lot of “meh” so far. There’s been a bit of that, plus a few attempts to annoy by expressing amusement.
Another attitude I’ve seen so far is one that is moving beyond this particular subject. Each time someone on the left does or says something that would cause howling outrage if a Republican did it, the response is “Yes, it happened. But we have to move beyond the whole left/right thing.”
The problem is…our political system is binary. As Obama euphoria continues to wear off, the partisan sniping is getting worse. Each side is getting more overt in the warfare. And I think it’s going to get worse.
So why did I post the OP if I’m part of the problem I’m calling attention to? Because I was annoyed that a teacher would have the gall to bring her politics into the classroom in such an obvious way. And I would feel the same way about it if they were singing about Reagan. I might agree inside, but I would still maintain it’s a bad idea. We are not Cuba.
Seriously. You’ve got three years and change left. If you’re going to freak out over what one stupid teacher did months ago and try to inflate it into some grand socialist conspiracy to brainwash our children, you’re gonna be all tuckered out before years end. Pace yourselves. You could maybe try (since you have sooooooo many policy differences with Obama) making a big fucking stink over the actual policy decisions like sane people would instead of blowing every tiny little fart into a tin foil hat worthy hurricane of conspiracy nonsense.
How fucking hard would that be? Must be impossible, because we get “OBAMADEATHPANELGRANNYKILLINGYOULIESOCIALISTBROWNSHIRTMARXISTDESTROYINGAMERICAINDOCRINATEKIDSTHROUGHTHEPOWEROFHISVOICERAWROMG!!!” instead of reasonable discussions on policy.
Yeah. The teacher is an idiot. Hope she [del]gets[/del] got (that’s right, months ago.:rolleyes:) reprimanded for this nonsense. Evil One, you’re just as big an idiot for furthering this utterly retarded political circus horseshit that has fuck all to do with Obama, the administration, or policy. You’re an educated american with policy differences? Stick to those. Right now you, and every other moron trying to make political hay out of this, look like a petty, ignorant, desperate, shit flinging child who is too damned scared to actually debate policy like a grown up.
I hadn’t heard about this since I’m not on the RNC mailing list. I’m not surprised given the current political tone. Both the DNC and the RNC do this sort of thing when then presented the opportunity.
There is a difference in singing TO the president (being invited to the White House qualifiies in this case whether he’s in the room or not) and being taught a song ABOUT the president.
I can’t imagine that any school would make presidential praise an official policy. What happened here was a teacher crossing the line. Whether she was trying to indoctrinate or just wanted to have the children parrot her political beliefs, she crossed the line as badly as a creationist biology teacher or any teacher forcing the class to bow their heads as they prayed out loud.
You know how you can tell the difference between us and Cuba with regards to this? This was one teacher. One single solitary teacher acting entirely by herself and not on the governments orders.
And if you were so annoyed by the teacher, why “look forward to the mental gymnastics required to justify or minimize it?” Why say that everyone “wouldn’t be so casually flippant if the song were about GWB?” Why even compare it to Cuba? For all your mental gymnastics and justification, you’re just part of the ever worsening partisan sniping. Congratulations.
Also, I didn’t notice any of the children carrying firearms while they sang, nor did I see them going to other classrooms disrupting their attempts to learn and have a dialogue with their teachers. And I did not see one little Jane or Johnny hanging from a light fixture with the word “Kid” scrawled on their chest.
Not a necessarily good thing to have done but it’s all relative, right?
I was annoyed by what the teacher did and said so. Nothing more, and nothing less. No foaming at the mouth, no telling anyone to “git their gun”. Just calling attention to something that should upset anyone who expects teachers to teach instead of using children as personal validation or amusement.
I’ve already said it’s a shame that the GOP is using this as a fundraising opportunity…something that both sides don’t hesitate to do.
Finally, if Obama’s political fortunes continue to sink, the “petty desperate shit-flinging” is going to get worse from both sides.
Strange, because what I’ve noticed is a lot of howling outrage from the right over things the right did themselves in recent years, which somehow wasn’t worthy of howling outrage then… It’s as though we get our information from different sources!
And you’re helping. You didn’t just pit the teacher. You made a point to stick this to liberals in particular as I addressed above. You can try to hold yourself above it as hard as you want, but you are part of the fucking problem. Just because you didn’t attempt to use it as a call to arms doesn’t make it any better.
As I said, you want to be considered an educated american with policy differences? Act like it. You want to be lumped in with the rabid masses? Keep doing what you’re doing.
I’ve been in the media for nearly 30 years. Both sides have discovered that people are more comfortable having their opinions validated and want news that does so. That means money. The teacher did what she did…but if you saw it on MSNBC the reaction would be “aww, how cute!”.
Why do you think that ratings for Fox are skyrocketing? The other networks and CNN are spliting the left-leaning audience and Fox is getting the benefit of providing content to a numerical majority.
:mad: