Quote:
Originally Posted by Professor S
This is not accurate, and the administration even changed their original "curriculum" they sent out for the speech in recognition of this. I don't think people mind the idea of President Obama speaking to a nation of students. Many presidents have done this in the past, usually about the importance of school and/or drug abuse, etc.
What people are/were upset about is the orchestration of continued "Obama-centric" curriculum before and after the speech, such as essays about how they can help President Obama and the like. I believe one of the recommendations was to advise students to read his books, but I'm not certain. The materials have since been changed since the whole hubbub started.
The point is that the discussion should be about the topic President Obama is speaking on, not President Obama himself. It's this type of continued personal campaigning and politics of the individual that are inspiring so many to overreact and make claims that he is a fascist, socialist, megalomaniac, etc.
And now we hear that President Obama wants yet another prime time speech to talk about healthcare, and odds are the ratings are going to fall even farther than they did for the last one. He is quickly talking himself into obscurity. It has been my contention since his election that President Obama is great at campaigning for President, but he doesn't seem to know how to do much more than continually campaign, and I think he's is exhausting a lot of the good will with which he started his presidency.
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I've heard about the essay, which was promptly changed, but even that seems alright since it was in the context of getting the kids to work hard on their education. If it had asked something like "How can you help President Obama make abortion legal" or "How can you help Obama remove the Republican party", then that would have been a bigger deal.
You're mistaken about the book, though. The suggested activity actually states for the students to read books
about presidents and Barack Obama, and goes on to ask why listening to
all elected officials, including mayors, senators, and members of congress is important.
I look back to whenever Bush gave his anti-drug speech, and if the kids had been asked to write an essay "How can I help Mr. Bush", in the context of helping them work towards not doing drugs, then I would have also been okay with that. If the prompt had included "and make gay marriage illegal", then that would have crossed a line. But it didn't, these presidential speeches and their curriculum have all been based on things we can universally accept as good.
But if having some Obama centered things in the curriculum (which there are none) was the big deal here, why haven't people/politicians been voicing out against that? The only thing I've seen splashed across the conservative media and peoples Facebook updates is that they are angry the president is going to "talk directly to the kids."
For example, here's a link to the Republican Party of Florida and their chairman's statement:
http://www.rpof.org/article.php?id=754
No mention of a curriculum centered around Obama. He seems to think that the speech is going to be about government run health care and banks. He's also upset that teacher's can't teach about the "sanctity of human life" or "traditional marriage", and that they can't have prayer in school. He also refers to Obama as "Pied Piper Obama". These are the sorts of things that real people and parents will read and reiterate to their kids.
I ask again: which one is brainwashing?
Re: Obama to brainwash youths of America
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