Call me crazy, but making a bunch of elementary schoolers sing about the President sounds pretty weird. Does anyone have any particular insight into how this seemed like a reasonable idea? This doesn’t seem like something I would cross school disctrict boundaries to yell at someone about, but it does seem like a great way to set up a bunch of kids for future disappointment. When those kids find out what the word ‘politician’ means (compromise, empty rhetoric and undisclosed conflicts of interest) they will be pissed at their teacher for setting their expectations so high.
So there’s my outrage. Now let’s hear some outrage about this.
Maybe it’s the liberal in me speaking, but jesus christ. Ech.
steve s
I was a little weirded out by it, til I found out it was for Black History Month back in February. That seems like it could be appropriate. (I haven’t watched / won’t bother to watch the video, however).
steve s
I’m just killing time til the loud calls for impeachment begin. I’m betting that’ll be underway by next summer.
JK
Dummy Ann Althouse weighs in
Somewhere in New Jersey: School kids learn to praise Obama
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2009/09/somewhere-in-new-jersey-school-kids.html
adolphus
I think it is kinda creepy. Kind of like those singing kids during the election. However, according to reports I have read it was one song among many written for Black History Month. I recall writing stupid poems, letters, and plays and such for famous blacks during Black History Month, famous women during Women’s History Month, etc etc. I still think it was kind of weird, but meh, not as weird as that Jesus Camp scene or any number of stupid shit I have heard parents make their kids do at political rallies and the like.
Jon
I can tell you the difference between the “praise Obama” songs and those made for Bush. The majority of us on the right and in the center felt uneasy seeing that Jesus Camp excerpt and some of the government “praising” done by adults and kids in post-Katrina.
But, to the left, worship of a president through song is natural to them. They don’t see government worship as a disturbing trend. And the recent videos of it prove this. This is happening every day in schools (mainly in the northeast) and has nothing to black history. Not that bhm is a good excuse anyway.
Remfin
You know what’s far weirder? Making a bunch of kids who don’t understand what they’re saying repeat a loyalty oath to a piece of cloth hanging in the corner every morning.
Singing about a person seems downright sensible in comparison. Even addressing a person’s cardboard cut-out as an idol makes more sense since it’s only one level of abstraction away from an actual person.
SpotWeld
Yeah… singing the praises of a living president.. not really the best option there.
K. Grant
This falls in the realm of ‘odd local news that is clearly benign.’ Honestly.
chrome agnomen
@Remfin:
or mumbling oaths of fealty to an imaginary voice in the sky…
Brachiator
As noted by JenJen in another thread (Michelle Malkin had a hissy fit over this incident)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/abraham/detail?blogid=95&entry_id=48336
Yeah, it’s bad, goofy, or whatever you want it to be. But a huge amount of what teachers do to little kids would probably rate high on anyone’s weirdometer.
It’s part of the joy of education.
mai naem
You want impeachment – I got your impeachment –
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2009-09-17/news/time-bomb-a-70s-cop-killing-investigation-leads-to-a-chicago-law-professor-who-helped-launch-barack-obama-s-political-career/
I read this a couple of weeks ago and I hate to admit it but my first thought was that this is what they are going to use to impeach Obama. Guilt by association even though it has nothing to do with Obama.
Brachiator
As noted by JenJen in another thread (Michelle Malkin had a hissy fit over this incident)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/abraham/detail?blogid=95&entry_id=48336
Yeah, it’s bad, goofy, or whatever you want it to be. But a huge amount of what teachers do to little kids would probably rate high on anyone’s weirdometer.
It’s part of the joy of education.
Odd. My post just disappeared when I hit the Submit button. I apologize if it shows up as a double post.
Just Some Fuckhead
The Fuckhead family does this exact same ritual over John Cole, who we represent with Mr. Potato Head.
Bootlegger
@Remfin: Word up. Because, you know, you just can’t trust people who won’t pledge their allegiance to a flag and under god. I’ve told my kids they don’t have to participate.
How you like them apples from this DFH Jon?
sglover
Agreed. Nobody loathes Bush and the Gang more than me. But I’ve been to my share of rallies and demos for good leftie causes, and at those I’ve seen plenty of toddlers carrying placards and mouthing slogans (or trying to) at their parents’ behest. Lots of parents indoctrinate their kids, or try to.
KG
@Jon: I use to be considered a center-right libertarian, without doing much, I’m now probably a center-left libertarian. The Jesus Camp stuff had me uneasy from the get go because I’ve always had a problem with that kind of Christianity (what Sully would call Christianism). This stuff with Obama is stupid, but not creepy, because I don’t see the same kind of fundamentalism in it. That’s the difference.
@Remfin: do they still do the pledge of allegiance in schools? I remember doing it in elementary school, right after the Our Father (I went to a Catholic elementary school), but I don’t remember doing it at the public junior high or high school I attended here behind the Orange Curtain.
Bootlegger
@Jon: Yeah wingnuts would rather praise something they can’t see, call it their Lord, and then persecute and denigrate those who call them on it. Idiot.
Sorry for dropping the Troll kibble folks.
Just Some Fuckhead
Summorgadabakasheekaramoacoasatirabahiya! John has surrounded himself with spirit-filled commenters!
KG
@sglover: a lot of times, there is a thin line between indoctrination and education
stickler
This whole situation is living testament to the (second) greatest mistake of the Founding Fathers: having the Head of State be the Head of Government. Just because George Washington didn’t decide to become King doesn’t mean the system isn’t seriously flawed. Other places (say, Germany) have the head of Government be the parliamentarian who gets things done (or, in the case of Gordon Brown, NOT); while some older grinning chap of enormous charm and no power gets to swear in new recruits (Horst Koehler).
That George Bush cutout-worship fits really well with a traditional reverence for The Head Of State, even if it’s a creepy Pentecostal hero-worship form of that reverance.
Remember, too, that we’ve had a few Presidents who’ve tried to avoid the King-worship parts of the office: remember Jimmy Carter carried his own bags and walked down Pennsylvania Avenue to his inauguration? And it was his only inauguration, too.
Bootlegger
@KG: Not only do they do it but they still make them say “under god”. My youngest thought it was “under guard”. I told him to keep it up.
Warren Terra
I haven’t really followed the story, but it seems really inappropriate and dumb.
I’m fine with the Pledge, as it’s about Nation, Liberty, and Justice – except the McCarthyite addition of “Under God”.
The next-to-last samurai
I was born in 1959. In elementary school we sang songs about Washington & Lincoln on their days, & we had the good old moment of silence extended whenever the Kennedy anniversary fell on a school day, but virtually no ceremonial attention was paid to the sitting president. Just a blast from the past for comparative purposes.
Bootlegger
@KG: I remember singing “Nixon, Nixon is our man, throw McGovern in the garbage can” on the school bus in first grade. These kids prepared a song for a school performance, not for daily recitation. This is yet one more example of peak wingnut fauxrage.
cmorenc
“He [George Bush] has surrounded himself with spirit-filled people”.
Must have been 100-proof spirit-filled people to govern like such a bunch of irresponsible drunkards.
anonevent
@Jon: I’m curious how you write this comment in this particular thread. Tim’s talking about how creepy it is, and you say lefties love the stuff. I find this particular winger trait – cognitive dissonance – to be the most frustrating.
Davis X. Machina
The pledge had disappeared entirely in my schools, teacher and student, from the mid-70’s at least, until Bush pérè made it a campaign issue in ’88 — then it got said again for a while — two, three years? Suddenly it no longer mattered.
The pledge went back into limbo until 9/11, when it was a regular start-of-the-day feature again — probably because the alternative was singing policemen doing “God Bless America” between seventh and eighth period, or something.
This lasted again for two or three years. Now it’s supposed to be weekly in theory, but in practice it’s in abeyance again, waiting for the next war, demagogue or mass-casualty terrorist strike.
Skepticat
It’s not as though this song is part of their everyday routine. I think they’d have to be forced to sing it each day to even begin to approach the status of indoctrination.
Bootlegger
@anonevent:
It fits with their anti-intellectualism. When you don’t believe in evidence and logic there is no such thing as hypocrisy and dissonance.
Wilson Heath
If there’s anything learned in the last eight, hell, let’s even say 16, 24, 40 years, it’s to not have blanket trust for our political leaders, much less adoration. Better to have a healthy skepticism and distance.
Tim F.
@The next-to-last samurai: I was going to say that Nixon was your president, but then Bootlegger commented right after you. I guess that people did that with Tricky Dick as well.
mp1900
To sing a cute song about the first black president during Black History Month doesn’t seem weird at all to me. My little kid neighbors were thrilled when Obama was elected. “He’s biracial like ME,” one little girl told me proudly.
chris
It was President’s Day. They also sang about Washington and Lincoln.
I’ve decided that the wingnuts have decided that if you don’t hate the President enough, you’re unamerican.
Brachiator
Yeah, it’s bad, goofy, or whatever you want it to be. But a huge amount of what teachers do to little kids would probably rate high on anyone’s weirdometer. It’s part of the joy of education.
Michelle Malkin unsurprisingly went ballistic over this. JenJen wrote about the faux furor in another thread, with a link to a San Francisco Chronicle blogger who put this wackiness into a little perspective.
https://balloon-juice.com/?p=27494#comment-1381609
from the SF Gate blog piece:
Is our children learning? God only knows.
General Winfield Stuck
There are a shitpot full of grade schools in this country, and you can’t tell me that somewhere, some school teacher didn’t have their students sing even a wee little song that mentioned George Bush. It’s just that wingnuts have big antennas for this sort of thing, and they don’t miss much.
Nellcote
Sheesh, how soon we forget how thrilling and amazing it was to actually inagurate the first Black President. So a couple of weeks later some kids made a song for Black History Month about it. I think it’s kinda sweet. Parents complained? They complained when the Prez. told their kids to do their homework and stay in school!
Omnes Omnibus
@General Winfield Stuck: Is a “shitpot full” more or less than an “assload”?
Cruel Jest
Why is it bad to worship Obama but it’s OK to worship Bush?
Shut Up! That’s why.
General Winfield Stuck
@Omnes Omnibus:
Nope., It’s a half-assload. You need two shitpots to be make one assload.
wonkie
If a group of kids wrote the song or just decided on the song for a school assemlby performance, then I see nothing wrong with it. If a group of adults decided on the song and put the kids in the position of either having to sing it or quit the choir, then I would find it creepy indeed.
My understanding is that the kids who wanted to do it put the song on as part of a performance. So big deal.
BTW all of the students in the junior high I attended were subjected to all school bouts of jingoism and extremism in the form of guest speakers: retired CIA agents, Viet Nam vets, speakers from the American Legion. The theme was always prowar propaganda.
The jingoism fests continued thorough high school, but attendence was optional so I never went. I think the routine died out somewhere around 1970 or 71.
Bootlegger
@General Winfield Stuck: so what is a buttload?
Bootlegger
@wonkie: You shoulda heard the rants my metal shop teacher, a Vietnam vet, would go off on. Of course nobody talked about PTSD in those days (1981). That dude was a freak, and not in a good way.
Brian Griffin
@Bootlegger: I would hope that the shit-pot has more capacity than the average assload.
General Winfield Stuck
@Bootlegger:
I reckon it’s an assload, We will have to straighten this all out with an epic Duck/Duct tape style thread before it goes in the lexicon of hot air.
Bootlegger
@General Winfield Stuck: I would agree, accept that butt is considered a lesser amount than ass (at least according to my son’s teacher). So I’m thinking it’s three butts to an ass. Kinda like a teaspoon to a tablespoon.
Bootlegger
@Brian Griffin: One would hope, otherwise you got a mess on your hands.
General Winfield Stuck
@Bootlegger:
See, this is the kind of deep debate we need to fix this country and git the right words to know what we’re up against.
Bootlegger
@General Winfield Stuck: Far more important than the countertops, no doubt.
wonkie
I had a biology teacher who was still fighting the Civil War. Oops, excuse me, the War for Southern Independence, and it’s all a big lie from Northerners that it had anything to do with slavery.
JenJen
@Brachiator: You know, I just don’t like that Michelle Malkin.
steve s
“It fits with their anti-intellectualism. When you don’t believe in evidence and logic there is no such thing as hypocrisy and dissonance.”
I got a real insight into this only a few weeks ago. Me and my friends used to wonder how people handled the dissonance. Like for instance my winger relative who believes that unions are bad, terrible, evil, no good things, even though she is IN a teacher’s union. And she’s in a teacher’s union so that she can’t be arbitrarily fired. We used to wonder how people handled the dissonance.
I realized recently that there’s no dissonance at all. Nothing to handle. It simply doesn’t occur to them that the two things are incompatible.
adolphus
Down here in Gainesville they say the pledge of allegiance before every Gator football games. It’s the stupidest thing.
Bootlegger
@steve s: Exactly. When your pegs all fit in round holes the baby Jesus is happy.
Bootlegger
@adolphus: Normally I would really dislike a Jesus freak like Tebow, but from what I’ve seen he actually keeps it low key and prefers to “witness” with his actions rather than his mouth.
But maybe The Pledge explains the Gators ranking. I’m sure I could get an Amen in Gainesville with that.
Bootlegger
@JenJen: That’s ok, Jesus still loves you, and he’ll love you no mater what. Unless your into homosex of course, that makes the baby cry.
wasabi gasp
Dude, a little appreciation for the adoration of the corrugation, please.
steve s
“I had a biology teacher who was still fighting the Civil War. Oops, excuse me, the War for Southern Independence, and it’s all a big lie from Northerners that it had anything to do with slavery.”
You mean the War of Northern Aggression?
goddam, I’ve got to get out of the south.
steve s
Anybody from Portland, Oregon? That’s where I’m thinking of moving next summer.
steve s
Hey, Adolphus, I’m 40 miles north of you in Lake City.
Bootlegger
@steve s: My old man lives there. Nice city. Good public transportation and lots of bike lanes.
Bootlegger
@wasabi gasp: Thank you Jesse!
steve s
I think that’s sarcasm. But I’m Steve +6 right now so my skillz are a little weakened :-)
The Dangerman
I would argue that a buttload has to be far greater than an assload. After all, a butthole has to be bigger than an asshole; have you ever heard of asshole surfing? I rest my case.
Bootlegger
@The Dangerman: I do love the Butthole Surfers, so point to you sir.
Jon H
@The next-to-last samurai: “but virtually no ceremonial attention was paid to the sitting president. ”
Right, but sitting presidents aren’t usually as inherently, automatically historically significant as the first black president is.
We’ve been celebrating the first white president for 200+ years, after all.
I find it hard to begrudge a school for celebrating the first black one.
wasabi gasp
@Bootlegger: That approbation, my friend, is the castration of a salutation jubilation!
John Harrold
While the Jesus Camp thing is creepy, those parents are choosing to send their kids somewhere to be indoctrinated. I certainly wouldn’t send my kids there, but hey to each his own. I think the distinction here is that indoctrination in a private setting is different than that sponsored and compelled by the state. At least that is how I see it.
Bootlegger
@John Harrold: But a sing-song for an elementary school program is hardly what I’d call Indoctrination. Lame maybe, but not marxistcommunismhitlerism.
Bootlegger
@wasabi gasp: I bow to your penetration.
steve s
That’s what She said.
John Harrold
@Bootlegger:
That’s how you feel, and that’s fine. That’s a judgment each parent should be making for themselves. If you want to sit at home and sing the praises of Obama, Palin, or the FSM, then I don’t really care. Having kids do it at school, is just odd, and I don’t think it’s appropriate for a public school.
steve s
oh wait the bootlegger thing was about portland. okay, the public transportation thing makes sense.
Steve +6 needs to take it up around +10 and call it a day.
Bootlegger
@John Harrold: but they’re not dude, its just a llittle fuckin’ song. NBD.
Bootlegger
@steve s: Yeah, Porland’s cool. I’m from the south and you’ll like it.
Jimbo
I guess y’all missed the little singsong at the White House Easter Egg hunt where in the little rugrats were forced to sing a song praising Bush and FEMA for their response to Katrina.
Comrade Nikolita
I was in Japan earlier this year with my mom, back in May and June. I can’t remember at which point I was watching it, but late night TV was showing “Jesus Camp” in its entirety, complete with Japanese subtitles (english dialogue of course).
And it was fucking creepy. The movie reads like a list of what’s wrong with religion and fundies in this world. And that they’re pushing that on kids who’re too young to have a consentful say in the matter is almost like child abuse – well to me anyways. When you have 5 and 6 year olds crying about “being saved” and how they’re “praising Jesus”, that’s over the line. If you’re old enough to have a say, then ok, but not when you’re that young.
I was raised Anglican, in an open-minded and respectful church. I attended Sunday school for a number of years, and then helped out with the service itself as a teen. But never ever was I ever like the kids portrayed in this movie, nor will I ever be.
Paul
When those kids find out what the word ‘politician’ means (compromise, empty rhetoric and undisclosed conflicts of interest) they will be pissed at their teacher for setting their expectations so high.
Spot on. Nothing to see here, folks; the kids are all right.
Also, having watched the video there is a word for this that eludes me, but it is certainly not “indoctrination”.
Mnemosyne
@John Harrold:
So having schoolkids sing a little song about how we just elected our first black president during a Presidents’ Day celebration in the middle of Black History Month is totally inappropriate?
What other current events do you think we should be ignoring in schools?
Steeplejack
@steve s:
Heh.
And I’m regularly surprised that I don’t see that line more on this blog. Maybe because the Balloon Juice commentariat skews a little, ahem, older?
Cain
@steve s:
Yep, I think there are a couple of us here. But I’m in the portland area. Welcome to a kind of sanity.
cain
Bootlegger
@Paul: Exactly. That song won’t mean shit to those kids when they hit puberty.
KaffeeMeister
@steve s:
I live in Portland, Maine, but spent 25 years in Seattle. Consequently, much I spent much happy time in the rose city of Portland, Oregon. Lovely city, very progressive. Certain to secede along with western Washington state and northern California. They want to incorporate with Vancouver B.C., into the great state or better yet country of Cascadia.
David
I went to school in Florida during the entirety of the 80s; not a day went by that we didn’t say the pledge of allegiance. (Booker T. in Sarasota, through to Landon Jr. High in Jacksonville.)
Further more, I sang the solo “I Wonder” in our elementary school production of Kids For America — again this was the 80s — and if that wasn’t objectionable then for its indoctrination then this performance now isn’t objectionable either.
Let me see if I can dig up a link for that super-duper patriotic America-Fuck-Yeah musical… Yeah. Here:
http://www.school-musicals.com/kids-for-america.html (also a score book for it on eBay)
Zuzu's Petals
@General Winfield Stuck:
I’d bet anything there were a few Texas schools celebratin’ a brand new Texas pres-i-dent. Why Crawford might’ve put on its own nativity play.
Zuzu's Petals
@steve s:
My son and his family live there. He loves it. Great family stuff, schools, culture.
His wife is still getting used to the winters.
Zuzu's Petals
@John Harrold:
Was it compelled?
Rekster
I think if we look back and think about what things were like in February then the song for the President looks a little different to me than it does now.
Have to consider that the wingnuts had not gone completely batshit crazy. I have to admit that I never saw that one getting to the point that it has gotten.
I am completely astounded by the complete hypocrisy of the right. Know that it should not be a surprise but it is.
Ian
@ #5 Jon
Whats the matter? do you live in a state with inferior public education than the states in New England? Is that why your pissed that their schools are teaching students how government works instead of government is bad? Or am I just feeding the troll?
bago
A buttload is a metric assload. The ratio is about 1.32:1 .
aimai
Well, I’m late to the fair, of course. I come from the generation that fought against have to pledge to the flag–vietnam, public school, we pledged every morning. I refused. Had to stand in the hall during the pledge. Got sent to the principles office. It was also at the time of the change over from a morning prayer in public school–this was in New England–to a “moment of silence.”
I’m completely opposed to having schools promote one version of government or government service over another. But singing a song in praise of, or noting the existence of, the first black president during black history month is a little bit different from, for example, pushing or promoting “democrats” or “republicans” on a daily or even annual basis.
As every sane person has pointed out schools renamed themselves “George W. Bush” and had kids sing songs praising people and Bush himself was *in the classroom* on 9/11 getting handclaps and praise from the school kids for sitting through someone else reading my pet goat. The right wing/libertarians/don’t tread on me crowd was absolutely fine with it. And you know what? It was fine! We can’t have la gloire without glorifying something. We are in a democracy. We have an elected president! We are happy about that whoever he is. If the kids have something to sing about–President Bush wants us all to have blue skies! Let it rip! Maybe if enough people had done it it would have embarrassed him to be such a polluter.
The question isn’t whether some teeny tiny kids were introduced to the concept of a democratically elected black man as a good thing–that’s really what the right has its undies in a twist over–but whether we want to let the right wing disappear Obama from history as efficiently as Hatshepsut before he’s even had a year in office.
Jason
Frankly, I’d take that dog-and-pony show straight to the White House if I thought it could get more funding for el. ed. and a repeal of NCLB. Let them make graven images, it’s not like the kids aren’t the fucking stakeholders in the matter. Politicians are effectively narcissists, I have no idea why you wouldn’t think it was the teacher trying to manipulate them, as opposed to the children. Christ google “cavil” for a man
A Mom Anon
Singing something once for a specific reason isn’t indoctrination,for christ’s sake. It was Black History Month,President’s day and the first African American President was elected and inaugurated just before that.
Honest to god,how in the fuck did the USA ever become a superpower with so many damned paranoid crybabies running around? If these pecksniffs spent as much time fixing ACTUAL problems as they spent whining about people’s countertops and ZOMG! indoctrination,this country might be in better fucking shape.
kay
It is over the top. Both are over the top.
But the response is so over the top.
I think the thing that makes the outrage ridiculous for me is that this “issue” (if it’s an issue) is so completely local. It’s one school. This is school board stuff. I can’t imagine why it’s national news. I saw the Obama song clip on CNN, for God’s sake.
There are a lot of public schools. Are national conservatives and the national media planning on moderating every song at every assembly at every school?
The conservative “vetting” of Obama is itself starting to have a creepy feeling. Like they’re making or reviewing tapes of everything even remotely connected to Obama, or liberals, or Democrats.
kay
@A Mom Anon:
There was no national relevance to this. None. There wasn’t a Department of Education connection, Obama himself wasn’t in any way connected, there wasn’t a Supreme Court case or really anything that took it out of that school district.
So why the hell was this national news?
Because conservatives made it national news.
That’s what’s scary.
Cerberus
The whole outrage disgusts me. I mean, first of all, part of the attack is a ramping up of their attack on education in general. Wingnuts are against it because it gets in the way of their indoctrination and lets kids find out unfortunate facts like how evolution works, how our bodies work, that white people haven’t treated blacks and native americans and women with as much respect as we would like, and that we entered wars that were bad ideas or giant losses. They hate education and want it destroyed and replaced with the type of propaganda they whine about.
Second, it’s part of their continued effort to erase black voices from education. They don’t want black people talked about or praised, because it gets in the way of training racism in the next generation. They’ve been gunning after black history month for awhile, trying to undermine it and this is like a giant focal point of rage for these people.
Third, they want to delegitimize the president and they need to do it. Obama is most potent as a symbol. He’s the first black president and he’s a black president. For black kids, many of them feel alienated from traditional career paths, because they don’t see their face in those who succeed in them. But Obama is the president, which means that “you can be anything you want to be” no longer rings as obviously bullshit as it once did for black voices. And for white kids, the president is the president and is cool, white kids are going to find it harder to promote racism or be pressured into racism, when hey, the president is a cool black man.
These are the focuses, these are the reasons for the outrage. Silly songs? Well, some people may be under the illusion that education is or should be a row of monastic individuals studying their textbooks and writing things, but that education model doesn’t work especially for young kids. Activities even “weird” ones are the pick of the day because of the active learning models that are more successful in engaging students especially of young ages.
You think that’s weird? How about “wild west” all-school projects whitewashing all the nasty “settler justice” aspects or involving stereotypical native american depictions complete with facepaint and feathers? Or songs about some debated piece of legislation so that the kids can understand what it’s trying to do? There were songs praising Bush, you can bet, and there are things worthy of saying, no, that’s over the line, walk it back, and versions of that denied kids because the fundies are whackjobs (evolution education, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Catch 22 (all banned from my high school because of fundies)).
Is this a cross-over the line thing? I wouldn’t begin to say, but the real issues that the right are fuming over with the double-standards, the projection, and they’re all out war on preventing the kids from learning about Obama?
They’re what’s above.
Indoctrination is what they bloody well want. They’re just pissed they’re not getting it.
Deborah
@anonevent: I find this particular winger trait – cognitive dissonance – to be the most frustrating.
Plus side, we needed an example for “rebunk.”
Cerberus
Also wake me when they’re singing that song as often as we repeat the pledge or hell when black voices are regularly mentioned outside of the one month window of February. Education has some indoctrinations and some blacklisting in it, kids singing a special one day song isn’t it, because the rest of the school year or society doesn’t reflect it.
Yet another go-around on the “we’re using liberal college faggot words without a clue as to what they mean, because we’re wingnuts woo, projecting like a mofo” circus.
kay
@Cerberus:
But how are they getting national media to play along? In what sense is this an “issue”? Unless you buy the conservative line, that this is important national news because there is a secret ploy afoot to indoctrinate children in Obama-worship, I would think an editor would look at this and say “not national news”. It just doesn’t meet the “national” standard. There has to be some tie-in, at some level, to the President in some officially sanctioned act. Using the standard media used here, any local act where Obama is even mentioned is national news. That’s crazy.
So. Do the media buy the secret plot idea, or are they just airing tapes conservatives submit as “news” with no editorial discretion whatsoever?
Did you see the Jesus camp tape on CNN? Did you see the other children-Bush tape, where they sang a song thanking him for Katrina response? No. Because it wasn’t in any way “news”. Why the double standard? Why does this ridicuolus level of vigilance apply only to Barack Obama?
Cerberus
@kay:
You need to ask? Everyone “knows” that the media has liberal bias, so it must jump on any and all conservative cry campaigns without any actual news investigation to show how “not liberal” they are and maybe the wingers will like them better.
Besides, they’re all in 1993 mode right now, trying desperately to cause a repeat of Clinton because this policy shit is hurting their thinking boxes and they’re begging the republicans to come back into power and make it go away with Obama orders ACORN to molest children with songs scandal investigation.
Besides, the media are owned by rich white men with the same interests in keeping the racial status quo as any other wingnut.
See also the “ACORN” controversy, media hand-wringing on Bill Ayers even though it had been thoroughly debunked and Ayers himself has been spending most of his life atoning for the low-key actions of the Weathermen, the Obama speaking to schoolkids scandal, etc…
They act as if they believe that if they just suck up to the wingnut and cover their stories then the wingnuts will love them and stop calling them filthy liberals. I say act as if they believe, because it’s impossible that that’s true and they genuinely want to cover this shit because it’s exciting and a welcome distraction against depressing stories of how fucked we are or have become or hard stories on policy and the real world effects thereof.
Bush didn’t get this treatment, because he fed the media easy soundbites and gave them excitement that didn’t need to engage their thinking box and lots of cool toys to watch brown people explode with.
Bruce Webb
Not only do they do it but they still make them say “under god”. My youngest thought it was “under guard”. I told him to keep it up.
Who is Richard Sands?
“I pledge allegiance to the flag, and to the republic for Richard Sands—”
One of the least known Founders I guess.
Bootlegger
@Bruce Webb: I suppose he’s one of the guards.
And to the Republic, for Richard Sands, one nation, under guard, with liberty and just us, for all
kay
@Cerberus:
I feel as if it’s more than that. I feel as if there is no statement about Obama that is rejected according to the ususal standard which is, “without more, we’re not going to report this as a pssobility”. Instead, ANY statement is treated as presumptively legit.
But that isn’t the way it’s supposed to work, in “serious journalism” or really any “serious” American institution.
Why isn’t Obama afforded even the basic benefit of the doubt? Everyone gets that. Not him.
When conservatives say “Obama is brainwashing schoolchildren” why is that treated as a valid question that has to be proved or disproved? When conservatives say “Obama wants to kill old people” that should be REJECTED, “without more”.
Because we didn’t see this knee-jerk level of suspicion from the media with even Clinton, I’m starting to think it’s race-based, within the media.
Where is it coming from? They are treating the craziest conspiracy theories as rebutable assumptions. That’s unprecedented.
kay
@Cerberus:
I think what has surprised me the most about Obama’s election is not the strange reaction from the Right, but the strange reaction from the media.
They seem gobsmacked by it. It’s like they feel as if the “old rules” regarding reporting on the President are somehow invalid or superceded now, and they are sort of winging it, just throwing whatever shit lands on their desk out there. “here! this is about the President, sort of!”.
I have felt for a long time that national media are deeply conventional. That “we” don’t love “tradition” nearly as much as they do, so I should not be surprised, but I am.
He’s just like any other President, really. They don’t have to throw the goddamn Presidential Reporting Rule Book out and start from scratch, just because he looks different than the 44 prior. They can relax, take a deep breath and just follow convention. He’s not all that freaking scary, really.
Mnemosyne
@Cerberus:
My high school ended up banning the short film of “The Lottery” because it would teach teenagers to question religious authorities.
Man, was I glad I’d already graduated. Not surprised at all, though — our principal was ridiculously weak-kneed when it came to any kind of controversy. You should have seen the stink when a punk-ish girl who was rumored to be a lesbian ended up a finalist for Homecoming Queen. Needless to say, she wasn’t even allowed to participate.
Zuzu's Petals
Shandai!
Zak44
Praising Bush in a public school classroom: wrong.
Praising Obama in a public school classroom: equally wrong.
Idolatry is better left to religious schools. And Radio Pyongyang.