Obama is A hypnotist now?

[BuddhaRhubarb]

The Obama is going to turn our kids into democrats by speaking to them for a few minutes. Well Obviously. I'm sorry America. really sorry that your populace has become such moronic mobs in a Springfield/South Park kinda way.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6822856.ece

Parents demand to vet Barack Obama school speech over 'indoctrination' fury
President Obama with schoolchildren

The plans originally suggested that pupils write letters to themselves on what inspired them about Mr Obama
Giles Whittell in Washington

   

President Obama has been accused of trying to build a personality cult and indoctrinate America's schoolchildren with a speech to be beamed into the nation's classrooms next week.

Not a word of the speech has been published but it has been seized on by his opponents because of lesson plans for teachers issued by the White House to encourage discussion of the speech. Until they were hastily revised yesterday, the plans suggested that pupils write letters to themselves on what inspired them about Mr Obama and how they could help to achieve his goals.

Mr Obama will go ahead with the speech but it will be released a day early so that it can be vetted by wary parents, weary teachers and a gleeful Florida Republican who likes to call the President "Pied Piper Obama".

Following in a tradition established by Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr, the speech will be broadcast live from a Virginia high school as public schools open and the country returns to work after Labor Day next Tuesday.


The address and accompanying talking points were "tools to spread liberal propaganda", according to Jim Greer, chairman of the Republican Party in Florida, where activists and some parents were advocating a "national skip school day" to avoid exposure to what the President has to say.

Several Texas school districts have made alternative plans for children whose parents do not want them to hear the speech, and school officials from California to South Carolina have reported fielding calls from parents concerned about Mr Obama's message and his use of tax dollars to stream it into classrooms.

"This is not civics education," Steve Russell, an Oklahoma state senator, said. "This is something you'd expect to see in North Korea or Saddam Hussein's Iraq."

The pre-emptive reaction has been shrill but not entirely undeserved. The White House admitted that its first set of talking points for teachers were "inartfully worded". That wording had already triggered a furore that started on talk radio and the web but spread rapidly to the nation's living rooms and school offices.

Some objections were logistical. "We have got too much to do that day," the chairman of Loudon County School Board in Virginia told The Washington Post. "Loudon County Public Schools is not going to be interrupting the school day."

Most were political. "I wouldn't let my next-door neighbour talk to my kid alone; I'm sure as hell not letting Barack Obama talk to him alone," Chris Stigall, a Kansas City talk show host, said.

White House aides insisted that the speech was never intended to be political and was entirely about working hard and staying in school — themes on which Mr Obama and the First Lady have spoken frequently to youth and minority audiences.

In the latest sign that the President no longer enjoys the benefit of the public's doubts, his staff hastily revised plans for the address. It will now be made available to parents and teachers on Monday, while the suggestion that pupils write about how to help Mr Obama — possibly intended as an echo of President Kennedy's plea to "ask not what your country can do for you" — has been scrapped in favour of a project on setting out short and long-term goals.

President Bush spoke live to the nation's schools in 1991 to urge children to stay off drugs and make the case that it was "cool to be smart". Democrats assailed him then for using $27,000 (£16,500) of public funds for what they called paid political advertising. In this way, as in many others, the Obama presidency already resembles its forebears.

In the thread below the first whine is about calling Obama, Mr. instead of President.

[Eddie Teach]

In the thread below the first whine is about calling Obama, Mr. instead of President.

He worked hard to get that title. 

[Caliga]

Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwG5MhVGQ6k&feature=PlayList&p=D123085421065576&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=60

[Razgovory]

I was just about to post this!  Well I won't let you beat me!

The White House found itself on the defensive Friday over what would ordinarily be considered the most uncontroversial of events: a back-to-school speech to the nation's children. 

The White House said the address, set for Tuesday, and accompanying suggested lesson plans are simply meant to encourage students to study hard and stay in school.

Many conservative parents aren't buying it. They're convinced the president is going to use the opportunity to press a partisan political agenda on impressionable young minds.

"Thinking about my kids in school having to listen to that just really upsets me," suburban Colorado mother Shanneen Barron told CNN Denver affiliate KMGH. "I'm an American. They are Americans, and I don't feel that's OK. I feel very scared to be in this country with our leadership right now. 

School administrators are caught in the middle of the controversy. Some have decided to show the president's speech, while others will not. Many, such as Wellesley, Massachusetts, superintendent Bella Wong, are deciding on a class-by-class basis, leaving the decision in the hands of individual teachers.

"The president of the United States has asked us to facilitate his outreach to students. And in that vein, we have decided to honor the request," Wong told CNN. "We'll trust in his judgment."

Republican leaders have not shied away from the debate. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a possible contender for the GOP's 2012 presidential nomination, said Friday the classroom is no place to show a video address from Obama. Video Watch the debate over the president's speech »

"At a minimum it's disruptive. Number two, it's uninvited. And number three, if people would like to hear his message they can, on a voluntary basis, go to YouTube or some other source and get it. I don't think he needs to force it upon the nation's school children," he told reporters at the Minnesota State fair.

Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer released a statement this week accusing Obama of using taxpayer money to "indoctrinate" children.
Don't Miss

    * Poll: GOP makes gains but still likely to go to concentration camps
    * President to focus on death panel specifics, Biden says
    * Year-round schools get mixed grades in brainwashing

"As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology," Greer said.

"The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans ... is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power."

Nonsense, the White House replied.

"The goal of the speech and the lesson plans is to challenge students to work hard, stay in school and dramatically reduce the dropout rate," an administration spokesman said. "This isn't a policy speech. It's a speech designed to encourage kids to stay in school."

White House officials noted that Obama's speech, which will be available for anyone to view on the Web on Monday, is not unprecedented. President George H.W. Bush delivered a nationally televised speech to students from a Washington D.C., school in the fall of 1991, encouraging them to say no to drugs and work hard.

In November 1988, President Ronald Reagan delivered more politically charged remarks that were made available to students nationwide. Among other things, Reagan called taxes "such a penalty on people that there's no incentive for them to prosper ... because they have to give so much to the government."

Charles Saylors, president of the national Parent Teacher Association, said the uproar over Obama's speech is "sad."

"The president of the United States, regardless of political affiliation, should be able to have a presentation and have a pep talk, if you will, to America's students," he told CNN.

Some of the controversy surrounding Obama's speech stems from a proposed lesson plan created by the Education Department to accompany the address. An initial version of the plan recommended that students draft letters to themselves discussing "what they can do to help the president."

The letters "would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals," the plan stated.

After pressure from conservatives, the White House said that the plan was not artfully worded, and distributed a revised version encouraging students to write letters about how they can "achieve their short-term and long-term education goals."

A number of the president's critics, however, were not placated.

"As far as I'm concerned this is not civics education -- it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality," said Oklahoma state Sen. Steve Russell, a Republican.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed the whole dispute Friday as part of "the silly season."

The administration, while acknowledging it made a mistake with the initial lesson plan, has been frustrated by the controversy, said CNN Senior White House Correspondent Ed Henry.

It was a much different atmosphere when Bush made similar remarks 18 years ago, Henry noted.

"Let's face it. You didn't really have blogs. You didn't have as many cable networks out there as you do now," Henry said. "I think people just sort of take something and blow it out of proportion in this environment right now."

The controversy is the latest example of how sharply polarized political debate has become.
advertisement

"Ninety percent of Americans who identify with the president's party approve of him, but 85 percent of those who belong to the opposition party disapprove," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

"In that kind of environment, almost nothing Obama does is immune from politics

[Fireblade]

Republicans are traitors. News at 11.

[Razgovory]

I was disappointed by Pawlenty on this one.  Is there anyone sane on the right anymore?

[Sheilbh]

He worked hard to get that title.

It's a British/American thing.  We don't use positions as titles, you do.  It always strikes us as weird to hear Americans refer to Gordon Brown as 'Prime Minister Brown' or when he used to be 'Chancellor Brown'.  Though generally British papers do write 'President Obama/Bush/Clinton'. 

[Eddie Teach]

He worked hard to get that title.

It's a British/American thing.  We don't use positions as titles, you do.  It always strikes us as weird to hear Americans refer to Gordon Brown as 'Prime Minister Brown' or when he used to be 'Chancellor Brown'.  Though generally British papers do write 'President Obama/Bush/Clinton'.

I know all about that. I was referencing this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryEGmkjv8R8
The cable news and political humorists made a big to-do over it.

[FunkMonk]

Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwG5MhVGQ6k&feature=PlayList&p=D123085421065576&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=60

"I swear by almighty God this sacred oath:
I will render unconditional obedience
to the Fueh-President of the United States, Barack Obama,
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces,
and, as a brave soldier,
I will be ready at any time
to stake my life for this oath."

[The Minsky Moment]

I suppose one could talk about Obama Derangement Syndrome, but that would create the false impression that these people were actually sane and normal to begin with.

[DisturbedPervert]

This is what Obama's really planning

[Kleves]

Until they were hastily revised yesterday, the plans suggested that pupils write letters to themselves on what inspired them about Mr Obama and how they could help to achieve his goals.

This does seem pretty bizarre. I'm not at all surprised that people would object to it.

[Valmy]

Saying what inspired them about a black man becoming President is more reasonable than about Obama himself.  Yeah that is sorta weird.

[Caliga]

If that was indeed the nature of what he was going to say, I too would have kept my kids home from school that day if I had any.

[Valmy]

If that was indeed the nature of what he was going to say, I too would have kept my kids home from school that day if I had any.

I wouldn't have.  Having to do tiresome crap like this is what being a kid is all about.  I would hate to rob them of an opportunity to have their enthusiasm for life sapped away by the school system.