We have been promised that the speech to the school children of American today, September 8, 2009, will only be about how kids need to stay in school, and be all that they can be.
The assignments for writing about how they can help the president have been scrubbed.
Obama and gang have done everything they can to convince the angry parents, and those crazy right-wingers, that Uncle Barry's nice little chat with the children of American inside their classrooms is about as benign as it can get.
So why am I still uneasy about Obama speaking via television link to all of the school kids in America?
"The other presidents did it," has argued many that support Obama's actions.
No president ever spoke to all school kids at once, interrupting important class time in all schools across the fruited plains. Maybe past presidents have spoken to a single class, and even to an entire school, but never to all students nationwide. And when Daddy Bush did it in 1991 at Alice Deal Junior High School, which broadcast live on radio and television, urging students to study hard, avoid drugs and turn in troublemakers, the Democrats went crazy, calling it "Paid Political Advertising". And note, the speech was to that junior high, and was broadcast live on radio and television to the regular world - not beamed into every classroom in America.
I have even received Internet backlash from The Village Voice in New York for asking the question: "Does the Hitler Youth come to mind?"
What defenders of Obama do not understand is the actual text of the speech is not the problem. It is the timing of the speech, it is the obvious marketing ploy being utilized, and as Michelle Malkin puts it, it is the "subtext."
The White House's argument seems sensible enough. According to the Obama White House press release, "As children across America go back to school, President Obama will deliver a national address directly to students on the importance of taking responsibility for their success in school. In advance of this address, the Department of Education is providing resources developed by and for teachers to help engage students and stimulate discussion about persisting and succeeding in school."
Remember, the original assignments were to write how students can "help Obama." The White House has since withdrawn their call for students to help Obama, claiming it was an "honest misunderstanding." The address was meant to be an "inspirational, pro-education" message.
Notice, however, the original wording wasn't how to help your country. Long lost is the John F. Kennedy question of "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." The discussions and assignments proposed have all been about Obama. The speech, and the teacher's urgings of the students before, during, and after the speech makes it a pro-Obama narcissist exercise.
Here's a piece of irony for you, as well, regarding this speech to the kids of America. On September 27, 2007, then Senator Obama introduced the "Positive Behavior for Effective Schools Act" in the Senate. S.2111 would have redesigned and amended the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to allow, in part, for "State, local educational agencies, and schools to increase implementation of early intervention services particularly school-wide positive behavior supports." In Section three of that bill, positive behavior support was defined to mean "a systematic approach to embed proven practices for early intervening services, including a range of systemic and individualized strategies to reinforce desired behaviors and eliminate reinforcement for problem behaviors, in order to achieve important social outcomes."
Is that what Obama is doing here? Is he trying to embed governmental behavior standards on the children?
Section five of the bill calls for "Teacher and Principal Preparation to Improve School Climate," mandating a new requirement for teachers and principals.
Section 8 creates the "Office of Specialized Instructional Support Services" which shall "administer, coordinate, implement, and ensure adequate evaluation of the effectiveness of programs" via a new "Director" who provides "continuous training and professional development opportunities for specialized instructional support personnel" comprised of "school counselors, social workers, psychologists, and others." These "instructional support personnel" provide "assessment, diagnosis, counseling, educational, therapeutic, and other necessary corrective or supportive services" for students.
Though the bill did not specify the systematic approach that would be used for embedding America's students to achieve the desired behaviors the government demands of them so that acceptable social outcomes could be met, apparently he has not forgotten about his agenda to get to the children.
Even more alarming is that this comes at a time when Obama is begging for support, and is losing ground rapidly. As Michelle Malkin has pointed out, "It’s not the speech, it’s the subtext."
On Michelle's site the following subtexts are then considered:
- It's the radical activism of the White House Teaching Fellows who designed the education guides tied to Obama's speech.
- It's the overzealousness of public school educators who have turned classrooms into Obama campaign offices.
- It's the influence of the left-wing social justice crusaders of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge on Team Obama.
- It's the Left's embrace of Obama Chicago pal Bill Ayers' pedagogical philosophy of "education as the motor-force of revolution."
- It's the activist tradition of government schools using students as junior lobbyists to pressure legislators for higher education spending, pro-illegal immigration protests, gay marriage, environmental propaganda, and anti-war causes.
Strong, power hungry types always want to get their hands on the kids. All Dictators of the past have used that strategy. Indoctrinate them now, in turn making them your allies now, so that they can be of use later. It's an age-old tactic, and no matter how much they sugar-coat it, the speech to the children of America today is about making the kids allies of big government, and marketing Obama to a generation that may be voting soon, or can influence their parents in the next election. Or, it may even be in the hopes that getting to the kids could influence the policies on the table now.
If you want to change society, you do it through the children.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
Flashback 1991: Gephardt Called Bush's Speech to Students 'Paid Political Advertising' - News Busters
I repeat: It’s not the speech, it’s the subtext; Update: Don’t let me, me, me down - Michelle Malkin
S.2111 - Positive Behavior for Effective Schools Act - Open Congress
Obama plans to systematically “embed positive behavior” into America’s Kids - Canada Free Press
School's Out! Rightbloggers Decry Obama's Hitler Speech to Schoolchildren - The Village Voice, New York News
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