Slight political rant ahead

[charliesmum]

On Facebook there is a poll about the whole "Obama making a speech to the nation's children" and whether or not one agrees with this. Currently the majority votes 'no' on the speech, and I don't understand why.

I looked up the suggested questions/activities and they are all very innocuous. Well, here's an exerpt from the 7-12 age group:

Conduct a “quick write” or “think/pair/share” activity with students. (In the latter activity, students spend a few minutes thinking and writing about the question. Next, each student is paired with another student to discuss. Finally, the students share their ideas with the class as a whole). Teachers may choose to ask the following questions:
What ideas do we associate with the words “responsibility,” “persistence,” and “goals?”
How would we define each term?

How is this turning our kids into mindless socialists? How does this make him like Hitler? (Several of the comments on Facebook Godwin'd the whole thing. Hitler Youth was mentioned.)

Look, I'm not politically savvy at all, but isn't some of the stuff the 'Homeland Security' did much higher up on the 'arugh' scale then the President wanting to address to students the importance of a good education? It's okay to have a President who advocates torture, but not one who wants kids to learn about responsibility?

Some people on the Facebook poll comments (and really, don't read if you don't want to lose your faith in humanity) say 'politics have no place in the classroom'. Fine. So we'll not be having kids recite the Pledge of Allegiance anymore then?

What is this I don't even...

Comments

[fireflylive.livejournal.com]

I do not understand how socialism is a dirty word in America. How on earth is a fair and just society with equal opportunities (and equal access to services etc) for everyone at odds with 'The American Way'?

As for the President not being able to to speak to the young people of the USA... well good grief, how on earth are they going to engage the next generation of voters if they don't start somewhere. You have to engage young people or they'll just spend the next 50 years on Facebook lol!

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

I think because we're supposed to be all about pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps and rags to riches, and...oh, I don't know. It has something to do with Capitolism. Or Ayn Rand.

The whole thing just...Since Obama's election, I swear these people have gotten crazier and crazier. It's...well...can I come live with you? I don't eat much and we'll be quiet.

Quick aside, during the '04 election I kept joking if Bush won again I'd move to England. He did, and a few weeks later Charlie says to me, "Oh, Mommy! We forgot to move to England!'

[geishawhite.livejournal.com]

Because socialism means the top ten percent of earners don't get to keep their millions and squillions but actually help fund the existence of those who make their food, drive their cars and take out their rubbish for them. Socialism involves equality - and while America is all about the equal start - see their raging anti-classism - it's certainly not about the right to equality once you've begun.

[cat63.livejournal.com]

What? Teach children to think? Inconceivable! They might have [gasp!] ideas! The horror!

[crossbow1.livejournal.com]

If you look at the activities the DOE posted, the PDF files are different from the Word files. The PDF files have some activities/questions that I really don't like, not because they're socialist but because they seem to me based on "we should do what the president says because he's the president." To me that smacks of propaganda, although one of my friends says he didn't read it that way.

In any case, that's the DOE, not Obama. The DOE has been letting us down for decades - why stop now?

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

I suspect these are the people who would prefer, if Obama must be permitted to be President, that he stay locked up in a safe room for four years where he can't talk to anyone or do anything or be seen. If he does it, it's wrong. Logic is not at work here.