Obama General Discussion... (Part 2)

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I seriously don't get it.

It's like the Twilight Zone of some sort.

I've pondered this from time to time. I think I first recognized it in the days following 9/11 when patriotism equated to not asking questions, and you were either "for us or against us."

Was it going on before that, and I somehow missed it? What is the cause, is it the advent of 24/7 cable news? When did people become incapable of taking information from various sources, weighing it, integrating it, and coming to their own conclusions? In essence, when did people lose the ability to think logically?

It really is troubling.
 
I've pondered this from time to time. I think I first recognized it in the days following 9/11 when patriotism equated to not asking questions, and you were either "for us or against us."

Was it going on before that, and I somehow missed it? What is the cause, is it the advent of 24/7 cable news? When did people become incapable of taking information from various sources, weighing it, integrating it, and coming to their own conclusions? In essence, when did people lose the ability to think logically?

It really is troubling.

Fucking Canadians.

You can't fool the majority of the American public! I read that somewhere on the internet, so it must be true.
 
Was it going on before that, and I somehow missed it? What is the cause, is it the advent of 24/7 cable news? When did people become incapable of taking information from various sources, weighing it, integrating it, and coming to their own conclusions? In essence, when did people lose the ability to think logically?


Is it this, or is it the omnipresence of talking heads that spew bigotry 24/7, giving like-minded people some kind of validation?

Or are we saying the same thing?
 
Fucking Canadians.

You can't fool the majority of the American public! I read that somewhere on the internet, so it must be true.

In an e-mail forward?

Is it this, or is it the omnipresence of talking heads that spew bigotry 24/7, giving like-minded people some kind of validation?

Or are we saying the same thing?

I think we're pretty much saying the same thing.
 
Students in grades pre-K-6 are encouraged to "write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals."

Teachers are also given guidance to tell students to "build background knowledge about the president of the United States by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama."

During the speech, "teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful."

For grades 7-12, the Department of Education suggests teachers prepare by excerpting quotes from Obama's speeches on education for their students to contemplate -- and ask as questions such as "Why does President Obama want to speak with us today? How will he inspire us? How will he challenge us?"

Activities suggested for after the speech include asking students "what resonated with you from President Obama's speech? What lines/phrase do you remember?"
Those of you that voted for Barack Obama will have to humor the rest of us when we think that such a "lesson-plan" might not be cheerfully accepted by all were George W Bush the president addressing our lil' tykes.

Also, please excuse some people for noticing that the president's milk & cookies talk is scheduled to take place the day prior to his 'make or break" healthcare address to a joint session of Congress.

And finally, excuse some us for worrying whether just a wee bit o' this type of thing might not have originally been in the text:

"Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."
 
Wait, where is this quoted from?

Also, please excuse some people for noticing that the president's milk & cookies talk is scheduled to take place the day prior to his 'make or break" healthcare address to a joint session of Congress.
So the students may take the subliminal message home to their senator parents and convince them to change their minds?

And finally, excuse some us for worrying whether just a wee bit o' this type of thing might have originally been in the text.
Please read this over again and tell me exactly what you're talking about...

Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."
One can only dream :drool:
 
Almost as embarrassing as you, a teacher, blindly accepting that it was completely apolitical.

I'm sure you were just as embarassed when Reagan and George H Bush did the same thing? Otherwise your hypocricy has been in full force the last several days. First with the insurance companies and now this...

I would think in a free country one reserves the right to be as uninvolved or uninformed about any matter they wish, should that be their choice.

Your dream is not my dream I'm afraid.

Yes, I do have a dream where ignorance is not celebrated, forgive me. But I do support the freedom to be so...
 
Even Laura Bush thinks the whole school uproar is bs:

Laura Bush praises Obama, bemoans excessive partisanship - CNN.com

...

The typically reserved former first lady defended Obama's decision to deliver a back-to-school speech to students, putting her at odds with many conservatives afraid that the president will use the opportunity to advance his political agenda.

"I think he is [doing a good job]," Bush said when asked to assess Obama's job performance. "I think he has got a lot on his plate, and he has tackled a lot to start with, and that has probably made it more difficult."

...

Referencing the uproar over Obama's address to schoolchildren, which will be aired nationwide Tuesday, Laura Bush said it's "really important for everyone to respect the president of the United States."

Bush didn't completely dismiss the concerns of some conservatives but noted that controversial Education Department plans recommending that students draft letters discussing what they can do to help Obama had been changed.

"I think there is a place for the president ... to talk to schoolchildren and encourage" them, she said. Parents should follow his example and "encourage their own children to stay in school and to study hard and to try to achieve the dream that they have."

...


Even though she was very diplomatic, tactful and even kind in the interview, I do disagree with her than any president or political figure is automatically owed respect, even Obama.
 
More from Laura Bush:

She said it is not fair to label Obama a socialist, as many of his conservative critics do.

She's been socially indoctrinated. I couldn't help but notice that her remarks were made in Paris. No wonder.
 
This must have been an accident, I thought the party as a whole decided not to allow any reasonable or informed members speak.

Oh well, I'm sure she'll be labelled a RINO by the end of the day.
 
Almost as embarrassing as you, a teacher, blindly accepting that it was completely apolitical.



it was about as political as Reagan and Bush 1.

for the record, as i've said, i think this thing is kind of lame, and i think the "lesson plan" was a bit of an overreach, and likely an organizational hiccup/brain fart.

but you people still look like idiots, no matter how you try to spin it.
 
Like I said, every goddamn thing nowadays has a suggested lesson plan, frequently as lame and out-of-touch as the one described here. It's sort of a de rigueur thing.



yeah, i'm less defending Obama here and more pointing out the lunacy of the uproar. i do think the speech itself, as deep has pointed out, is filled with a bit too much self-regard for my tastes.

but the fact does remain that he's a figure of enormous importance for certain segments of the American population. and it isn't even political. it's the fact that he's a black man who is now the most powerful person in the world. it's huge.
 
yeah, i'm less defending Obama here and more pointing out the lunacy of the uproar. i do think the speech itself, as deep has pointed out, is filled with a bit too much self-regard for my tastes.

but the fact does remain that he's a figure of enormous importance for certain segments of the American population. and it isn't even political. it's the fact that he's a black man who is now the most powerful person in the world. it's huge.

Buy you know, for a kid with the challenges described in the speech, especially a black kid, it may be a life-changing thing.
 
you know Obama used a teleprompter too


without that he would have reverted to something like

'Lis'n up - pimps and hos,
I got da chronic ...."
 
are we forgetting Laura was a teacher!!!!!

(she secretly swore the Socialist Oath many years ago)


When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings
By: BYRON YORK
Chief Political Correspondent
09/08/09 7:11 AM EDT

George H. Bush, 41st President of the United States (Photo by Logan Mock-Bunting/Getty Images)
The controversy over President Obama's speech to the nation's schoolchildren will likely be over shortly after Obama speaks today at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush's speech -- they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue.
Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president's school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president's political benefit. "The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props," the Post reported.
With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. "The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students," said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. "And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'"

Democrats did not stop with words. Rep. William Ford, then chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate the cost and legality of Bush's appearance. On October 17, 1991, Ford summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the speech. "The hearing this morning is to really examine the expenditure of $26,750 of the Department of Education funds to produce and televise an appearance by President Bush at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC," Ford began. "As the chairman of the committee charged with the authorization and implementation of education programs, I am very much interested in the justification, rationale for giving the White House scarce education funds to produce a media event."

Unfortunately for Ford, the General Accounting Office concluded that the Bush administration had not acted improperly. "The speech itself and the use of the department's funds to support it, including the cost of the production contract, appear to be legal," the GAO wrote in a letter to Chairman Ford. "The speech also does not appear to have violated the restrictions on the use of appropriations for publicity and propaganda."

That didn't stop Democratic allies from taking their own shots at Bush. The National Education Association denounced the speech, saying it "cannot endorse a president who spends $26,000 of taxpayers' money on a staged media event at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, D.C. -- while cutting school lunch funds for our neediest youngsters."

Lost in all the denouncing and investigating was the fact that Bush's speech itself, like Obama's today, was entirely unremarkable. "Block out the kids who think it's not cool to be smart," the president told students. "If someone goofs off today, are they cool? Are they still cool years from now, when they're stuck in a dead end job. Don't let peer pressure stand between you and your dreams.

oh ye hypocrites
 
:lol: Oh ye hypocrites indeed.

So I assume that you completely disagree with the idea of President George H.W. Bush or any president addressing the nation's schoolchildren with "entirely unremarkable" speeches, then? It's a bad idea for presidents to urge schoolchildren to take their education seriously, huh?
 
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