I was reading the text of Obama’s speech to students today and here’s what I found: it was focused basically on hard work and doing your homework (no political or scary stuff like the right-wingers said), but I noted some peculiar parts, which I think you guys will like:
That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school.
You will obey, obey, obey…
If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.
I had quite a laugh. If you guys see anything else that’s funny or plain weird, post it on the comments.
I remember as a child we had photos of the President’s up next to the flag we would pledge allegiance to every morning, even when it was Nixon and he was on his way out the school still had us show him the respect do to the office. Do these crazy parents think this too is some sort of subversive hero/messiah worship/indoctrination to even have the President of United States portrait up next to the flag?
“Not in our school I’ll not have my boy Pledging Allegiance to the Flag if that man is the decider! Pack your bag boy we are moving to …? damn all those other countries have a f#cken public option.. off the grid shack in Montana here we come gonna need more ammo”
#70 good one Mike this kind of crazy cuts both ways and has been for probably centuries but some how our country survives.
#74
First let me sincerely apologize to the totalitarians for calling you a totalitarian. No matter how misguided at least Bill Ayres and Alinsky is/was bright.
I’m guessing you are in 6th grade maybe 5th, and as you grow up you will learn name calling is childish and silly and doesn’t help you, and you will learn (hopefully) how to read with comprehension, it’s called being an adult. I know the public schools don’t do a good job with this (I’ve graded enough undergrad papers to see), but if you are lucky you will get the very minimum, which is what our schools are set up to do. It’s sad that this is your plight but it’s true.
The point stands that giving a speech along with a lesson plan for kids to study is inappropriate. Not illegal, just inappropriate, and smacks of totalitarian dictatorships (since I have to spell everything out for you, I’m not calling him a dictator, just that it smacks of dictatorship to ask little kids to help him with his goals for “the nation”). I don’t think it’s nitpicking to say that using the power of the Department of Education to make Obama and his wishes a topic for study is inappropriate. As far as the speech itself, it’s pablum delivered interestingly, as are many of his speeches. This doesn’t change the fact that it was inappropriate.
You don’t understand the idea, and honestly I really don’t expect that much from you anyway, but one day you will become an adult and then maybe we can try again.
Man, that “You will obey, obey, obey” comment was a massive stretch.
Ask yourself, seriously, how massive of a mental stretch do you need to put yourself through to “have quite a laugh?”
About the only thing I find ironically laughable in this whole idea is that some parents have enough of a jerky bent to flame out on this idea in the first place.
I think you missed entirely the notion that unclefart.squarespace.com held up as a main theme on this issue: The parental objections were thinly veiled residual racism. Were yours?
Sorry… but the whole point of the conservative uproar is that we did not know what he was going to say, and no reason to believe it would not be a political stunt.
What we suspected was a political stunt. And what we were told were the questions the kids would be asked afterward (don’t forget, they were scrapped after the uproar, and for good reason). And what we have known for some time is that public teachers are highly sympathetic to liberal politics.
Is is so hard to admit that this was a bad mix for a truly free-thinking society… a society where not everyone is a liberal (oh, please forgive us!)?
It does no good to say (with perfect hindsight) that we overreacted to a speech that had not happened yet.
#77–shitty==you are a silly person.
#79–mutt==”you had no reason” FULL STOP.
Thanks for demonstrating the point boys.
bobbo: Conservatives have no reason to suspect politics?
What was Kennedy’s own funeral if not a political stunt. Did you hear the audio? [ His funeral, for crying out loud!]
I heard that there were parents who kept their children out of school, a “sick day”, in order that they wouldn’t hear this president’s message. Now it struck me that this was just plain racism! They wouldn’t have dreamed of missing a message from Reagan or Bush I. Though I don’t remember any past presidents caring to inspire young students, at all. And nobody even kept their children from hearing Bill Clinton’s words. If some leaked into school classes. But along comes a black man, and suddenly it’s labeled “liberalism” and “communism”. Before anyone have even heard a word. Some days I’m ashamed of my America, holding onto this behavior, well into the 21th century. It speaks to just how poor education has been left go, in America. And how low certain political party members and supports are, to exploit the ignorant.
#81–matt==ok, I’ll give you one Kennedy, but not an Obamagod. I think that is the difference between being a senator vs being a President?
I really don’t like Bush Jr but I (naively?) don’t think he would take advantage of little kiddies===they don’t have any money afterall.
I wonder if all the fear and suspicion is just projection?
Racism? Vehement loathing for Obama by yes but racism? No, well maybe yes for a few but for most no. If it was Hillary in office they would be just as crazy mad and many folks would be calling it sexism. I see Reagan’s abolishment of the Fairness Doctrine as the major reason for this continued polarizing of Americans. If you get to self select all your information sources it gets to easy to avoid hearing what the other side has to say.
Bobbo – care to comment on this? I think the burden is on the left to demonstrate that this is NOT what we would have heard broadcast were it not for the conservative outrage.
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Obama Pitched Universal Health Care to Students in Meeting Prior to His Speech on Education
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer
President Barack Obama speaks to the nation’s school children in a nationally broadcast speech at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va., on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)
(CNSNews.com) – Prior to his nationally broadcast speech to students on Tuesday, President Barack Obama made a pitch for health care reform in a discussion with 40 freshmen at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va.
The president traveled to Wakefield High to give a speech on education reform. The speech was posted in advance on the White House Web site to quell fears that the president intended to plug his political agenda to impressionable minds.
Although the president avoided controversial topics in his speech, he did promote health care reform in a face-to-face discussion at Wakefield High School. Asked by a student how he stays motivated to do his job, Obama replied that his staff gives him 10 letters every day from “ordinary folks.”