OK, I know that this has already been diaried about a few times. In fact, Vyan has this on the rec list. But I just can't let it go.
You can read a lot more about conservatives getting their undies in a bundle here. I want to focus a bit on the comments made in this AP story.
"As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education - it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality," said Oklahoma Republican state Sen. Steve Russell. "This is something you'd expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein's Iraq." (Updated w/ proper link AP)
And in the same article, our favorite governor said:
"Nobody seems to know what he's going to be talking about," (Texas Governor) Perry said. "Why didn't he spend more time talking to the local districts and superintendents, at least give them a heads-up about it?"
Yes, the President of the United States talking with school kids is like something that Kim Jong Il or Saddam Hussein would do. The outrage is because no one seems to know what Obama is going to talk about...or at least no one except for school administrators and anyone that bothered to read the letter (available to anyone not too lazy to use the Internet) from Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education.
During this special address, the president will speak directly to the nation’s children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school. The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning.
OK, so Obama Hussein Jong-Il is going to indoctrinate our kids into a culture of self-responsibility and respect for education...the HORRORS!
If you look at the history of presidential indoctrination of school kids, Obama's speech about the importance of education and personal responsibility ranks right up there with the tactics of Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il. Just like his desire to provide affordable health care to all Americans is equivalent to Hitler exterminating 6 million Jews.
Let's compare this to how other recent presidents have tried to indoctrinate kids:
George W Bush:
Here in Philadelphia, Mr. Bush extolled the virtues of the No Child Left Behind Act, his signature domestic achievement, in a speech at the racially and socio-economically diverse Gen. Philip Kearny Elementary School, a school that has made adequate yearly progress under NCLB every year since 2003. (link)
This speech specifically lauded the President's (supposed) biggest domestic policy accomplishments. Of course, some conservatives in Florida (see the video in Vyan's diary) say: Yeah, but he didn't publish lesson plans (oh no, voluntary lesson plans). Well, they apparently don't know how to use "The Google." This speech did include lesson plans and one of them specifically asked students to research the biographies of Bush and Cheney. Because, you know, heaven forbid, that our students actually know something about their President.
George "H.W." Bush:
Bush 1 tried to indoctrinate our students into an anti-drug and anti-authority culture by telling them to "take charge" of their education. Of course, a few Democrats were upset about this speech. (No, they didn't compare him to a commie dictator) They criticized spending money to professionally produce the speech (broadcast live) because it would become a campaign ad.
Bush's Press Secretary dismissed the criticism by saying, "cynical journalists should get with the new technology."
And of course, by now we have all read Reagan's 1988 speech to school kids. The speech was criticized by Democrats AFTER it was given, because it focused a lot on policy. (I'm actually surprised that conservatives are not outraged too.) Here are some of the highlights:
OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! Reagan quotes a European...from France. Oh, the Horrors! Does he want our kids to become elitists. They might start asking for Dijon Mustard on their hamburgers!
As a wise Frenchman one wrote: ``Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue.'' But when dictators, even in this fraudulent way, acknowledge the basic truth that the right to rule comes from the consent of the governed, the door to freedom begins to crack open, and it can't very easily be closed again. John Adams said that long before the opening shots of America's war for independence -- he was one of our Founding Fathers, as you know -- our revolution had already occurred ``in the hearts and minds of the people.'' And today from Asia to Africa to Latin America and behind the Iron Curtain, the world is in the midst of a democratic revolution that was foretold by the creation of the United States.
And, Regan promoted a PRO-SCIENCE message (I ask again, where was the conservative outrage?):
The same thing is true with science and technology. We lead the world in Nobel Prizes for science, and virtually all of the most important developments in computers, communications, and biotechnology have been made in the United States. And I can't be the only one who's noticed that the Soviet space shuttle that's supposed to go up at 10 p.m. tonight now -- if they can get it off -- it looks very familiar, an awful lot like ours. Other countries may try to copy what we do, but as the rate of progress accelerates, our leadership will become even greater. And these are the technologies that in your lifetime will change the way people all over the world live and change things for the better.
Reagan did also talk a lot about faith and religion (OK, conservatives can now stop hyperventilating).
But in a world of change you also need to pay attention to the moral and spiritual values that will stay with you, unchanged, throughout a long lifetime.
And, again, I would say that the most important thing you can do is to ground yourself in the ideas and values of the American Revolution. And that is a vision that goes beyond economics and politics. It's also a moral vision, grounded in the reverence and faith of those who believed that with God's help they could create a free and democratic nation. They designed a system of limited government that, in John Adams' words, was suited only to a religious people such as ours. Our Founding Fathers were the descendents of the Pilgrims -- men and women who came to America seeking freedom of worship -- who prospered here and offered a prayer of thanksgiving, something we've continued to do each year, and so that we'll do it again on Thursday of next week.
And then, of course, is the tangent about the importance of tax cuts.
Today, to a degree never before seen in human history, one nation, the United States, has become the model to be followed and imitated by the rest of the world. But America's world leadership goes well beyond the tide toward democracy. We also find that more countries than ever before are following America's revolutionary economic message of free enterprise, low taxes, and open world trade. These days, whenever I see foreign leaders, they tell me about their plans for reducing taxes, and other economic reforms that they are using, copying what we have done here in our country.
I wonder if they realize that this vision of economic freedom, the freedom to work, to create and produce, to own and use property without the interference of the state, was central to the American Revolution, when the American colonists rebelled against a whole web of economic restrictions, taxes and barriers to free trade. The message at the Boston Tea Party -- have you studied yet in history about the Boston Tea Party, where because of a tax they went down and dumped the tea in the Harbor. Well, that was America's original tax revolt, and it was the fruits of our labor -- it belonged to us and not to the state. And that truth is fundamental to both liberty and prosperity.
Off on a tangent of my own... Under Reagan's financial stewardship, the U.S. went from the largest international creditor to the largest international debtor - in only 8 years.
Indoctrination, Cult of Personality, North Korea, Saddam Hussein, Hitler - Holy crap. The wheels really have come off, haven't they.