Regardless of party identification, presidents hailing from Texas have a nasty tendency to start land wars in Asia that end badly. I don’t really appreciate that trait, but I never suggested that George W. Bush shouldn’t address school children and tell them to work hard at their studies just because I thought he was a warmonger. I found it mildly annoying to be confronted with hanging portraits of Bush and Cheney in the offices of our local public school system, but I never suggested that those portraits be taken down. But my tolerance isn’t being reciprocated:
President Obama’s plan to deliver a speech to public school students on Tuesday has set off a revolt among conservative parents, who have accused the president of trying to indoctrinate their children with socialist ideas and are asking school officials to excuse the children from listening.
The uproar over the speech, in which Mr. Obama intends to urge students to work hard and stay in school, has been particularly acute in Texas, where several major school districts, under pressure from parents, have laid plans to let children opt out of lending the president an ear.
Some parents said they were concerned because the speech had not been screened for political content. Nor, they said, had it been reviewed by the State Board of Education and local school boards, which, under state law, must approve the curriculum.
“The thing that concerned me most about it was it seemed like a direct channel from the president of the United States into the classroom, to my child,” said Brett Curtiss, an engineer from Pearland, Tex., who said he would keep his three children home.
“I don’t want our schools turned over to some socialist movement.”
I remember when President Bush couldn’t be bothered to stop reading a book with elementary school children in order to address the unfolding attacks on September 11th, but I never suggested that Bush was trying to inculcate some kind of supply-side Jesus ideology on the youngsters.
What’s really odd is that this country behaves completely differently when there is a Democratic president. The Right in this country is basically placated as long as the White House houses a Republican. But, put a Democrat in the Oval Office, and the Crazy comes out in spades.
I wish it weren’t so.
Waaaaayyy back when I was in school (sound of gums smacking…) we were taught that the POTUS was our president, and to show him respect at all times. This was in South Carolina, and that was the conservative ideology of the time: respect for authority. Especially in a time of war.
Of course, after (Bill) Clinton besmirched the office, none of that applies. So it’s all Clinton’s fault.
Clinton was President right up through 2008, right?
Yes, he has been. It’s been unending socialist oppression since 1992.
I wonder if some places/people are refusing to put up Obama’s picture. It seems like a logical step down our path to insanity. It would be interesting to find out.
nalbar
I grew up in South Carolina during the “progressive” era of Eisenhower, JFK, and LBJ. Most folks counted themselves as FDR Democrats, even the anti-union racist ones. Most folks looked for their elected officials to be “progressive”, meaning build roads and schools and other public infrastructure.
We watched the presidential inaugural speech of JFK in Latin class. Heard the flight of Alan Shepard in SC history class. Watched the flight of John Glenn in history and math class. That is to say all of the classes.
The first crack in that attitude that I remember is when JFK was assassinated. I was a senior in high school. The announcement first came from the class clown who had been sent to the principal’s office for discipline and came back and said “Kennedy has been shot”. Class laughter. Red-faced, he says “No really”. Class shock. An hour later the principal comes on the intercom and announces solemnly “The President is dead.” In my chemistry class, gasps. Down the hall in some other class, cheers. Respect for the dead, respect for the President, both highly touted Southern virtues, shattered.
In 1965, Strom Thurmond was kicked out of the Democratic Party and joined the Republican Party. In 1972, Jesse Helms beat Nick Galiafinakis in NC on an anti-foreign and anti-“bloc”-vote platform. In 1978, Newt Gingrich was elected to the House and immediately started throwing rhetorical firebombs. In 1979, the Republican Party took over the Southern Baptist Convention. In 1987, the last progressive Governor of South Carolina, Richard Riley, left office after his second term.
There is a long history here and Democrats have made assumptions of respect for institutions that Republicans only followed when it suited them.
The fringe has taken over the party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, and Jacob Javits. I believe that Everett Dirksen and Barry Goldwater would be appalled at what has happened to their conservative movement.
More than 50% of workers took on new projects and gained more responsibility during the recession, according to an April survey by staffing-service company Accountemps. One problem in all this is that many people honestly believe that the U.S. government and “the USA” are one and the same thing. In their minds they conflate the government and the country. Thus, to them if you criticize the government, you are criticizing the United States. In a society in which many American citizens are criticizing the federal government for the bad things it has done with the economy, Social Security, Medicare, the drug war, bailouts, immigration, the dollar, and so much more, why do some Americans still consider it inappropriate to criticize what the federal government has done to foreigners? Isn’t it the responsibility of an enlightened citizenry to criticize the wrongdoing of its own government, both foreign and domestic, with the aim of keeping it on the right course? Isn’t that what genuine patriotism is all about? Let’s hope that if there is instant money used to make our economy recover from its slow down.
Last night on our local news, they said, “Local schools have been flooded with protests from parents who don’t want their children exposed to a speech from the President.”
I picked my jaw up off the floor and watched the rest of the story, but I could hardly believe it. One tenth grader was quoted as saying it was like Hitler recruiting and brainwashing tactics. Now where would a tenth grader come up with something like that? ::snark::
So this is what it’s coming to in Middle America. This is how low the Republicans have sunk. Talk about brainwashing: these assholes do not even know what the speech is all about, but they just don’t want some CommuniSocialifaschisto False President to say anything, anything to their children!
I am dumbfounded.
The Republicans are the biggest sucky babies in the world. Talk about poor losers. They are not interested in making things happen unless they are in power. They’re obstructionists who show not one iota of care for people outside their base.
The Republicans are the biggest sucky babies in the world. Talk about poor losers. They are not interested in making things happen unless they are in power.
Mmmm – didn’t I just say that?
Some people might say this is evidence of the “group mind” here at the Pond. LOL!
How… odd.
Look at the time on both comments. Very bizarre.
Profile spammer/SEO backlinker. Look at the user details for the spam link.
Should I change my password?
I banned them. I don’t know exactly what happened there. I’m getting a lot of spam recently. Seems to happen most when I’m distracted or let people know I’m not going to be around for a while.
A hint, (if you want it).
When you’re banning spammers, clean out the links in their personal information. At the moment, the link is still visible to Google’s spiders, so they still have their payoff for spamming you.
They’re unlikely to have stolen your password-they just cut and pasted your comment in a clumsy attempt to fit in. And test whether they can post comments, of course.
A spam diary is even better, of course. Ummmm….acai berries, anyone?
The United States is a nation rich in abundant resources, blessed with an astonishing mix of people from all parts of the world and surrounded by militarily weak neighbors, north and south. One would think that such a land would lead the world in the quality of its life and the efficiency of its progressive reforms, especially in light of the magnificent Constitution by which it is governed.
But, it is not so. The gods have decreed that such a promised land should have a substantial number of selfish and insensitive people who care not a whit for their fellow man and woman. They constantly ignore the basic needs of other citizens, even health needs, and seek only their own economic advancement. We call such people, republicans. They are really a curse unto us all. Indeed, we can measure our own social progress by how much they complain over a certain issue or a particular president.
I consider these people toxic to the welfare and well being of our beautiful land in both a symbolic and actual sense. They are the real challenge we must overcome in our search for a better life. Realizing this truism, I love to her the GOPers squeal. It means we are making progress once again and our collective life is on the mend.
On a personal level, I feel bad for the President and his family for being subjected to this kind of treatment.
On a political level, given the amount of damage Obama’s already done to the country and the Constitution, I can’t get any energy up to argue or dispute any of this because he’s not worth it.
Sucky babies never change the world – they have to grow up first.
Eventually their kids figure that out.
I don’t remember any such nonsense about Carter or Clinton. I suspect that it’s not because Obama is a Democrat but because he is a shhhhh…..secret Muslim who goes to Christian churches but sends out Ramadan messages and hosts a Ramadan dinner –did you know that Ramadan is a muslim holiday — and had ACORN steal an election and really wasn’t born in the US but in Kenya or Indonesia or some of those other Arab countries and whose real name is Barry Soetero and who takes orders directly from Osama bin Laden to release terrorists in the US to terrorize the good Real Americans and who is a fascist socialist communist tyrant trampling over our gun rights except when we stand up for them in NH or AZ and wants to homersechsualize Amerka and is suppressing the free speech of people in Congress who are calling him on his plans to establish internment camps for Real Americans, indoctrination camps for our youth, propaganda sessions for our little precious children, abortions for our fetuses and death panels for our elders just like Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot did…and by the way, do you realize that he’s black.
And that the Republican Party has no policies, no ideas, no wedge issues, but have not given up on their unsatiable search for absolute power, which they were well on their way towards during the Bush revolution but lost because of those ACORN activists and the dirty fucking hippies and their children on the lefty blogs.
That kind of crazy?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the last time there was a widespread fervor to keep kids away from school stemmed from school integration, and white parents didn’t want their kids mixing with the kids from across the proverbial tracks.
The modern day school boycotters don’t want their kids to hear an in-classroom speech made a (black) president.
Many people who cry
“wolf”“socialism” don’t even seem to understand what socialism really is. Their “socialism” is really just a cover for a different kind of “ism”. It’s sickening.I feel like renting a billboard. It would be a picture of Obama with his toothy grin. Above, it would say, “This is OUR President!” Below, it would say, “GET OVER IT!”
I wonder if getoverit.org is taken… ha, yes! It’s a dog obedience training site. How appropriate!
Ya’know, a majority of voters elected Obama. I hope they feel as personally offended as I do by this outrageous display of disrespect.
Yes, a healthy majority of voters. Obama’s margin of victory was more than three times that of Dubya Bush’s in 2004. The correct victory margin figure (popular vote) for Obama is 7.3%, whereas the correct figure for Bush in 2004 is 2.4%. (As we know, in 2000 Bush LOST the popular vote, a distinction he shares only with Rutherford B. Hayes and John Quincy Adams.) Of the 47 presidential elections that have been held since 1824 (when records of popular vote began to be kept), Obama’s victory margin ranks 26th, or just slightly below the mean, which was in fact George H.W. Bush’s 7.8% margin in 1988.
Oh, and by the way, Bush’s 2.4% in 2004 is still the narrowest victory margin on record for any REELECTED president. This should help us all to maintain a sense of proportion. The people who really hate Obama are pretty much the people who really love Bush. They are getting attention way out of proportion to their numbers.
Last week all the yahoos were typing “Mary Jo!” until I started typing back “Katrina!” Eight short years ago these same droolers were defending Bush reading that whole damned kids book to kindergarteners while the country was under attack.
I don’t know where i posted it first, but one of the most damaging effects of the Bush adminsitration was that they empowered the stupid and gave them a seat at the table, as if their opinion matters.
that’s why we’re seeing all this glenn beck/teabagger/socialist nonsense. the stupid were given all sorts of special attention, and now they feel they’re entitled to it.
the fact that they are so angry is testimony to their stupidity: they don’t understand that elections have consequences. they honestly don’t.
According to the Department of Homeland Stupidity the color for the day is: Lily White!