Community | September 04, 2009 | 238 comments

Schools to Big Brother Barack: Stay Out!!

source: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1920703,00.html

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chrisliu
When Barack Obama won Florida last November — the first Democrat to take the Sunshine State since FDR — many saw it as a sign of centrist GOP Governor Charlie Crist's moderating influence. But lately, Florida's disgruntled Republicans aren't looking very moderate. This week, in fact, the peninsula's GOP registered arguably the loudest outcry over the education speech President Obama plans to deliver to U.S. primary and secondary students via webcast and C-Span next Tuesday. In perhaps the most over-the-top performance, state Republican Chairman Jim Greer called it an attempt to use "our children to spread liberal propaganda" and "President Obama's socialist ideology."

Thanks in large part to the Administration's ham-handed advance work, the strident conservative anger that erupted this summer over health-care reform has shifted from town halls to school halls. On the surface, Obama's intentions for Tuesday seem nothing more threatening than a presidential pep talk about taking education seriously. But some ill-advised prep material from the Education Department — like suggestions that teachers have students write letters on "how to help the President" and recommendations that those pupils read his books — has left the door ajar (and that's all it seems to take these days) for Republican charges that Obama "wants to indoctrinate our kids," as Clara Dean, GOP chairwoman of Florida's Collier County, puts it.
(Read Joe Klein on Barack Obama's August to forget.)

The public school systems in both Collier and next-door Lee counties, a conservative pocket in southwest Florida that includes Naples, announced Thursday that their students won't be seeing Obama's speech. In a statement, Collier County Schools Superintendent Dennis Thompson cited "the logistics of making a Webcast available during that time of the school day." But his office also acknowledged that he'd been hearing from the community and its fears about Big Brother Barack. "We tend to be very conservative here," says Dean. "This President is extremely liberal, and we worry that he's leading us to socialism." Thompson did say his school district will post the speech on its website after Obama delivers it. But Collier Democratic Chairman Steve Hemping says it's the Republicans who are using students for cynical political gain. "No one should ever turn communication between a President and young people about what you can aspire to in the future into an ugly us-against-them exercise," Hemping argues. "This is a lost opportunity, because [Obama] is a role model who raised himself from a poor, single-parent situation precisely through education."
(Read about the shrinking state of Florida: what's causing the exodus?)

School districts in at least half a dozen other states have made similar decisions not to air the President's talk. In one of those states, Minnesota, Republican Governor and possible 2012 presidential aspirant Tim Pawlenty called the speech "uninvited" and voiced concerns about its "content and motive." One school superintendent in Arizona, James Murlless, while calling Obama's education advocacy "well intended," said he preferred his students see it "in their own homes under the supervision of their parents." The Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, a fiscal watchdog group that has become a sort of clearinghouse for conservative grievances since the anti-health care reform movement began, has revved up a campaign called "Hall Pass On That," urging parents to have their kids excused from watching the speech. In Oklahoma, state Senator Steve Russell rivaled Florida's Greer for hyperbole, calling Obama's talk "something you'd expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein's Iraq."

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When will the madness end?

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238 comments // Schools to Big Brother Barack: Stay Out!!

  • hammywill
  • Ihatethemall
  • hammywill
  • akamaial
  • hammywill
  • StandaboveUnderstand
  • StandaboveUnderstand
  • DeliaTheArtist
    • 0
      DeliaTheArtist  

    • "We're acting like a buncha weirdo, nutbags."

      This is exactly what I've been thinking all day while reading these stories. There is some serious socialist paranoia going on around our country right now, it's like part of the population has lost it's grip on reality.

    • 2 years ago
  • PajamaDan
    • 0
      PajamaDan  

    • We're acting like a buncha weirdo, nutbags. All this relatively unwarranted name-calling and rude comparisons make us look childish. I feel bad for the guy,... he inherited a broken nation, and he gets attacked for every option he offers. Trying to fix what the past 80 years have rendered isn't gonna be pretty.

      And not allowing kids to listen to Obama?! As soon as I was mentally capable,... I would've loved to hear a demographic speech. Poseidon forbid that a president try to brainwash, I mean, connect with our disconnected youth. Grow up. A president has a message for your kids. Sounds good,... and not in a socialism-seeding kinda way.

      So sit down, relax, put ALL presidencies in perspective (they've ALL had their downfalls and "radical, unorthodox" qualities) and possibly work together to fix a long-broken country.

    • 2 years ago
  • chrisliu
    • 0
      chrisliu  

    • Some people just refuse to educate themselves. Obama is addressing the students because America's literacy rates continue to fall. Finally the people of America have a President that cares more about education and healthcare than about War's and profit, yet he's a socialist? Think about it people. Wake up. When Obama says help him to the student's he's saying help him help America not further is so called "Socialist agenda." Conservatives are jumping on everything this man does. Its not due to his policies because anyone can see that he is trying to do what he promised, which was to bring "Change," to America. But instead people are using policies as an excuse for racism. It took America nearly 8 years to admit Bush's wrongs, but here we have the first (Half) African American President and people are going crazy over education and healthcare. Where were these people's anger when bush was in office? Where were they when Sean Bell was murdered and Katrina wen't down? People in Texas are calling for secession from the United States, because Obama is calling for Health Care that covers all people. Come on, wake up, get educated. Read a book. Its more than Obama. He's not a socialist, that's just a word people are substituting for the word nigger.

    • 2 years ago
  • PajamaDan
  • chrisliu
    • 0
      chrisliu  
    • chrisliu:

      Thanks PajamaDan,

      I wish that this would really end man. I'm some one who considers myself bi-racial and i don't truly identify with any particular culture. But i can't help but to hate the feeling of waking up to racism every day. When Obama became president i was proud, but was it worth all this? I really don't know. Racism is more alive than i have ever experienced in my life time. Conservative America is out of control. They are preaching like the Black Panthers, but with no cause. These are some Marcus Garvey movements (in reference to the secession movement), as if they have been enslaved for hundreds of years and had a country built on the backs of their ancestors and then left to be the dispossessed of today. This is the craziest shit i have ever seen!!! Can they really be that mad at healthcare reform? Or is it something more. This is an issue people really have to pay attention to in order to find a solution, i think. How do you feel?

    • 2 years ago
  • kstein
    • 0
      kstein  
    • chrisliu:

      Have you been to the Dept. of Ed website? have you seen the speech, It even has been change again with Obama not knowing what was going on. Im sick of hearing he doesnt know whats going on.

    • 2 years ago
  • michail77
  • chrisliu
    • 0
      chrisliu  
    • chrisliu:

      clayjj05,

      You are obviously a big time Glenn Beck watcher and aren't a self-thinker. Your brain is washed hun and i honestly feel bad for you. TV is not the means all to education. When have you heard Obama or anyone in his administration say "We want to get rid of the private insurance companies"? I really want to know. Also when have you heard him say "I hate Capitalism"? Why would some one run for president for a capitalistic nation, yet hate capitalism? Please answer me these questions, because your facts make no sense. You sound like a Glenn Beck flunky. Lets face the facts, there were certain things about socialism that were good and some things that were bad. Thats a fact. The same way there are some things that are good about capitalism and somethings that are bad. If Obama has one self-proclaimed socialist in is cabinet how is that one person going to influence the hundreds of democratic and republican legislators in Washington. Your operating in a world of fear that Glenn Beck has placed you in. America has already defeated communism in the passed, why do we need to fear it so much today? Wake up, smell the education that comes in a book instead of only focusing on your senses that are stimulated by the TV and the lack of none-factual information that Fox feeds you.

    • 2 years ago
  • chrisliu
    • 0
      chrisliu  
    • chrisliu:

      You don't watch TV yet your opinions are word for word with that same old Glenn Beck propaganda. My opinions don't necessarily coincide with Obama, but they are in direct contrast to ignorance which is the foundation of your arguments.

    • 2 years ago
  • michail77
    • 0
      michail77  
    • chrisliu:

      As far as reading "Mein Kamph" goes the extreme right wing in this country has significantly closer parallels the Nazis more so than any other group. And I'll even say that's a far stretch except for a few of the neo-Nazi groups operating in this country.

    • 2 years ago
  • michail77
    • 0
      michail77  
    • chrisliu:

      Trying to parallel Nazism with politics in modern America isn't really appropriate for the most part. We have our extreme groups but for the most part I think most of us want the same things.

      Among those is to live free from tyranny and oppression. However, when it comes to things such as gay rights, women's rights, separation of church and state and scientific thought I feel moderns conservatives are rather repressive.

      Yes, paradoxically Republicans played a part in ending slavery and in woman's suffrage.

    • 2 years ago
  • JimboTheHippo
    • 0
      JimboTheHippo  

    • seriously socialist? are some of you that stupid?Socialism a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole. Even the American socialist party says he not socialists get a freakin clue

    • 2 years ago
  • chrisliu
    • 0
      chrisliu  
    • JimboTheHippo:

      He's not advocating for control of distribution and production. What history books are you reading? I think you need to be listening to Obama's speech as much as the rest of Americas youth, because your ignorance is so beyond you. Corporations are the biggest criminals on the planet. Instead of killing one person, they pay millions of people less than the value of their labor, thus leaving them to live short painful lives where people starve and die at the expense of the American people. If corporations weren't so filled with greed, China wouldn't have as much power as they do over America. Obama is trying to regulate that greed. A free market economy has come to mean basically, enslaving people around the world and forcing Americans to be consumers instead of sovereign beings. I don't know how you can be apart of Current TV.com and allow yourself to think like this. Current TV promotes independence, self sufficiency and focusing on our needs as a people instead of our superficial wants. Wake up.

    • 2 years ago
  • chrisliu
    • 0
      chrisliu  
    • JimboTheHippo:

      Your concept of history continues to become more rambunctious. Yes, anything that involves politics tends to have evil connotations and that goes for governments and corporations alike. But i'm not worried about the politics of either, i'm worried about the solution. If Obama regulating corporations and the insurance company's equals the better overall well being of all people than i'm for it. Why waste time labeling each others actions instead of paying attention to the outcome. People are so focused on words and what they perceive them to mean instead of focusing on the message that the person is trying to convey. Obama's message is equality for all people and if that means giving healthcare more attention than War's and focusing on education instead of worrying about states that want to secede from America, than i'm for that (Isn't it kind of ironic that the state with the lowest literacy rate in the country doesn't want to hear the president speaking to their youth about education?). Because regardless of the words that Obama or anyone else uses, the message is for the advancement of humanity in general. Maybe you should look pass the word socialist and start to think about the message/solution that the President is trying to push forward.

    • 2 years ago
  • krag2112
    • 0
      krag2112  
    • JimboTheHippo:

      I guess you people don't mind looking like idiots. The president is going to give a speech on Tuesday where he tells the American people that their children are amazing and that they can achieve anything they want if they work hard and stay in school. And because of all this hype you people are going guarantee that this is going to be heard by everyone in the country. He's going to come off looking optimistic, compassionate and Presidential. And you are coming of as loons and bigots. You're being played like a fiddle and you're too stupid to even realize it.

    • 2 years ago
  • Tyr
    • 0
      Tyr  
    • JimboTheHippo:

      Krag you know you hit the bullseye dead center, this reminds me of the Last Temptation of Christ.. a movie that maybe ten people would have gone to see...but because of all the ridiculous outrage the Church folks raised about it the damned theaters were packed by people wanting to see what all the fuss was about...you called it right my friend.

    • 2 years ago
  • TheEmpireGuy
    • 0
      TheEmpireGuy  
    • JimboTheHippo:

      "vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc."

      I should like to vest that in the individual, where it's meant to be. My rights as an individual mean more than the "community".

      I am a singular person, a human being, and i have 'certain unalienable rights'. I think some pretty important document said that once. I think i have something called the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

      I don't know if that rings a bell or anything.

    • 2 years ago
  • hombre76
    • 0
      hombre76  
    • JimboTheHippo:

      yes that about sums it up for you fucks doesn't it all for one and fuck everyone else, ie the community. well dont worry a fire in the master house is set and we're just waiting for you to come running out.

    • 2 years ago
  • krag2112
    • 0
      krag2112  
    • JimboTheHippo:

      @clayjj05

      Would that be the same altered reality where a black one term senator could never beat a white war hero? Oh...wait.

      Seriously, how many times do you guys have to be proven wrong before you start to clue in? Hilarious.

    • 2 years ago
  • kstein
  • bombastinator
  • Ihatethemall
    • 0
      Ihatethemall  
    • kstein:

      @Bomb

      I don't need to. I don't need nor do I want any president preaching his propaganda bullshit to my kids. I don't want or need any teacher furthering obamas communist agenda to my kids and I won't allow it. WTF do you think about that?

    • 2 years ago
  • StandaboveUnderstand
  • Zurama
  • krag2112
  • Ihatethemall
    • 0
      Ihatethemall  
    • kstein:

      @stand
      Well you think wrong. I can and will stop anything that involves my kids if I feel it is not right for them. There is NOTHING you or anyone else can do about it. Thats fact

    • 2 years ago
  • StandaboveUnderstand
  • Zurama
    • 0
      Zurama  

    • Look if it's a one time thing, I don't think it will do any harm. I seem to recall President Reagan and President Bush addressing students once.

      If it becomes a habit, then we got problems-remember Vladimir Lenin said something like.......Give me 8 years of a child's life and I'll give you the next proletarian.

      It's already been established that Obama and company have a socialist agenda-how bad is it, only time will tell.......

    • 2 years ago
  • Ihatethemall
  • akamaial
  • Ihatethemall
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