Abusing School Kids With Pro-Obama Propaganda

Townhall.com ^ | September 2, 2009 | Michael Medved

[Kaslin]

My wife Diane seldom gets upset about politics. But President Barack Obama’s recent demonstration of megalomania in insisting on beginning the school year by simultaneously addressing all public school kids in the United States elicited a concise response: “it’s sick.”

In addition to her Ph.D. in psychology, Diane holds an M.A. in Education, and both primary and secondary teaching credentials in California. She has raised and educated our three kids, each of whom received some combination of home schooling, parochial education, and public schools. What bothers her (and many courageous teachers across the country) is the crude attempt by the Department of Education and the White House to blur all distinctions between education and cult-of-personality propaganda.

On September 8th (the first day of classes for many school kids) the President will address them live about the importance of education. The President will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals and take responsibility for their learning, declares an announcement from Washington. The Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, sent a directive to teachers and administrators declaring: “This is the first time an American president has spoken directly to the nation’s school children about persisting and succeeding in school. We encourage you to use this historic moment to help your students get focused and begin the school year strong. I encourage you, your teachers, and students to join me in watching the President deliver this address on Tuesday, September 8, 2009.”

To prepare for this great event, the Department of Education orders teachers in Grades 7 to 12 to ask their students: Why does President Obama want to speak with us today? How will he inspire us? How will he challenge us? After the great event, the department suggests that teachers of younger students (Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 6) should instruct their students to write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These should be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.

For those who consider this an appropriate use of classroom time at the very beginning of the school year, ask yourself the question: how would you respond had President Bush ordered teachers to get students to write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president?

Public opinion surveys show a precipitous decline in the presidents approval rating, with a majority of likely voters (according to Rasmussen) now disapproving of Barack Obama’s leadership. Imagine the reaction of one of these anti-Obama parents to a first grader who comes home proudly announcing that our whole class made promises about helping President Obama.

If the purpose in the Presidents speech involves inspiration of African-American youngsters who otherwise might feel discouraged by their prospects in school, why not allow the First Lady to give the address in place of her husband? Michelle Obama (like most Presidential wives) has functioned as a non-political, non-partisan national symbol and she actually grew up in an African-American home on the South Side of Chicago not raised, as her husband was, by a white mother Ph.D. in Indonesia, and by a white grandmother bank vice president in Hawaii.

And if the purpose is encouragement for educational excellence, rather than political promotion of the President and his agenda, why not give some additional time to Republican National Chairman Michael Steele, whose black single mother worked by cleaning homes and taking in laundry, not as an anthropological researcher?

A number of teachers have reacted with appropriate indignation to the misuse of public resources and precious school time to encourage the cult of Obama worship. Carole (not her real name), a gutsy middle school teacher in the Midwest, discussed the upcoming speech on my radio show on Monday. Teachers from four different states called in to say that they would follow her example and refuse to devote class hours to watching and discussing the presidential address.

Challenges from parents and taxpayers everywhere could force a change in White House plans. The idea of using government schools to force students to bond with the maximum leader might seem appropriate for Cuba or North Korea, but it’s clearly out of place in a Constitutional republic.

[hershey]

But Obama wants the US to be North Korea. That’s the whole idea.

[mosaicwolf]

This Bolshevik tyrant needs to address the Iranian school children not the US children!

[Man50D]

The teachers will drive home the socialist propaganda after BO subtly discusses it in his speech.

[CanaGuy]

One step over the line, sweet Jesus,

One step over the line.

Sittin' downtown in a big white house,

one step over the line....

[stevem]

You can’t hold it against Obama, really. What better way is there to recruit future Obama youth and Brown Shirts?

[NurdlyPeon]

With “LOVE OBAMA, OBEY OBAMA” subliminally flashing in the background.

[humble and shy]

my high school kids will not be attending school on Sept. 8.

[ETL]

Film Producer Accuses NEA of Enlisting Artists to Push Obama's Domestic Agenda
FoxNews.com ^ | August 28, 2009 | Joshua Rhett Miller

Posted on Tuesday, September 01, 2009 8:30:28 AM by ETL

[snip]

Courrielche said officials on the hour-long call -- including NEA Director of Communications Yosi Sergant and Michael Skolnik, political director for hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons -- encouraged the artists on the line to create works of art in their respective fields related to health care, energy and the environment.

"What I heard was a well thought-out pitch to encourage artists to create art on these issues," Courrielche told FOXNews.com. "We were told we were consulted for a reason, and they specifically stated those issues as the issues we should focus on, to plant the seed. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what they're attempting to do."

[snip]

"The word volunteerism was never used," Courrielche said. "Service was the word being used and it was in specific areas, those being health care, energy and the environment."

Courrielche said the now ubiquitous Obama "Hope" poster by artist Shepard Fairey and musician will.i.am's "Yes We Can" song and music video were offered as "shining examples" of the artist group's clear impact on Obama's landslide election.

The "potential propaganda machine," Courrielche said, is concerning on many levels.

"The issue that troubles me the most is that the NEA was set up to promote the arts," he said. "If you have a meeting where you're trying to set up a machine that does your bidding, a propaganda machine, that's not what the National Endowment for Arts is for."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2329309/posts

[nathanbedford]

It appears that the Obama administration is opening a propaganda war on several fronts. Glenn Beck yesterday exposed a similar assay into the world of the arts by exploiting the financial hold that the National Endowment for the Arts has over artists whom they subsidize. Now we have Obama reaching into the educational establishment, which the federal government more and more subsidizes.

Both forays are repugnant to the spirit if not to the letter of the Constitution and to the American way of keeping government out of of such matters, especially where the institutions involved are funded by the government. As with Public Television and Public Radio, liberals never see the need for a firewall.

It is also instructive to consider that the administration is doing that which the Bush administration would never have done for two reasons. To Bush it would have been unseemly, unthinkable, and improper. It would also have been counterproductive because all of these institutions have been so it co-opted by the left that they are now virtual extensions of the Democrat party and any attempt by Bush to push propaganda the way Obama now is, would have been a firestorm of blowback.

But the Obama administration can proceed secure in the knowledge that the teachers will cover his back and spend the day filling out a propaganda effort on his behalf which he need not even explicitly ask for. Likewise, the White House in collusion with the National Endowment for the Arts, knows that the artists, all of whom seem to have supported Obama, will dutifully produce the kind of propaganda material in furtherance of the cult of personality.

There is a greater lesson than merely indignation to be drawn from this. Conservatives have got to understand that it is the culture war that ultimately will determine the political fate of our constitutional republic.

[wolfcreek]

If we still had children in school, they would be *sick* that day.

[silverleaf]

I found this whole obama address to the children, with lesson plans (!) very creepy- very cult-like

Shades of East Germany, Cuba and North Korea!

Another night of tossing and turning .... at least my kids won't be exposed, this time

BTW, Arne Duncan= another Chicago stooge of Bill Ayers. This “education” program has “Ayers” written all over it, I can smell it. Anyone else?

[cayuga]

This Bolshevik tyrant needs to address the Iranian school children not the US children!

He is just following procedure:

“Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever” Vladimir Lenin

[Texas Jack]

Oh, this is too easy... here let me fix it.

Why does President Obama Comrade Stalin want to speak with us today? How will he Comrade Stalin inspire us? How will he Comrade Stalin challenge us?

There, that's better.

Now for the giant pictures of Comrade Obama in all public places so we can stare at them with admiration and feel secure in his guidance.

[scoobysnak71]

[concerned about politics]

instruct their students to write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.

How they can serve HIM.

I think the man is insane. I honestly believe he thinks he's been personally chosen by Allah himself. I don't think he has any idea he's been carried by radicals since before he was born. I think he believes he made it to the presidency through divine guidance rather than crazed anti-American zealots.

I hope the American people have learned from all this. Next time, maybe they'll pay attention before they vote.

[Tax-chick]

Carole (not her real name), a gutsy middle school teacher

I'm confused. What's "gutsy" about speaking anonymously? Not that I blame her, but it's a peculiar choice of adjective on Mr. Medved's part.

[faucetman]

Sept 8th is when Orly will expose Obama in court

[eens]

Keep the kids home Sept. 8th

Sept. 8th is Our Lady's birthday. Pray the Rosary for an end to Communism.

[glide625]

I should probably stay out of this but when I saw that headline my mind literally screamed at me.

Why? What possible motivation? What possible excuse can intelligent, rational parents be using to allow their children to attend the State sponsored Public Schools? What part of the oppressive, omnipresent, anti-Christian, anti-American agenda of the NEA do you not understand? What part of the fact that when a NEA Propagandist sees little Janey Whitebread sitting in class they immediately think, “an abortion that should have happened” do you not get? Public schools are the fermament pot of the Resident Evil that want to enslave you and your children; they work hand in hand with other evil government bodies such as CPS and the Court systems to undermine your authority as parents.

Sheeesh people; it is my fervent prayer that one day a “majority” of, at very minimum, Christian parents will see such headlines and pass up the stories because they’ll be thinking, “Doesn’t apply to me and mine......we Homeschool, “or our kids go to the Church school”, or.....”.