What's the big deal with Obama's speech to kids?

We see a fascinating dichotomy: Some say "Respect the President. It's just a speech. What me worry?" Others: "This is another pernicious attempt to indoctrinate kids. Keep your hands off off my kids!" it's a Rorshach test of Obama-philia and Obama-phobia.

The Sept 8 rebellion is gathering support in the right-o-sphere.

Yet the issue is it's not just the speech - it's the context. Thinking of it as "just a speech" without the context of multiple other efforts to enlist kids for political activism misses the point. Putting it in context, we see a cult-of-personality disorder among the President and his followers, with this part of a pattern to create a certain, inappropriate view and relationship from the people to the President.

The Dept of Ed gave instructions to how to teach around the speech. The instructions to educators, written by White House appointed 'fellows' who are Ayers-like leftists, tells educators to instruct kids:
" “Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president."
Help the President?!?
Is asks kids to ask what he president is telling them, and over and over use the word "president Obama" more than other terms. 9-12th grade instructions are to create large print quotes of President Obama to put in the classrooms.

This is not about learning or the kids, but about President Obama inculcating a cult-of-personality around him, feeding the false, politicized notion that 'community service' and 'service to country' will be about helping President Obama and not the country as a whole.


If a student writes "I will help my country maintain its freedom and fiscal security by opposing Obama's tax increases, spending boondoggles and socialized medicine plans" will a teacher say that meets the test of 'helping President Obama"?

Those instructions are sickening, wrong and so over-the-top the Dept of Ed has started rewriting them in the last 24 hours. See the story on the white wash.

When Bush was president, Then-House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Missouri) said, “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the President.”

That's exactly what the Dept of Ed has tried to do for President Obama. President Obama has a cult-of-personality disorder and his team is feeding it. Bravo to all the parents who are smart enough to not participate and to tell their government schools and private schools - "You want to have kids learn. Keep them learning, this is not a necessary or useful thing for them to watch."

In the end, the President is supposed to serve us, not the other way around. We owe political leaders no loyalty, they owe us service, integrity and a respect for their own office through not abusing it to gain political power illegitimately. That's what we fear is happening, and Obama's actions - this among many others - do not allay them.

If RRISD shows this speech to my kids in Government-run RRISD schools, it won't scar them to see it, as they are smart kids. But it will be a waste of their time, as they get more motivation from parents and teachers than a politician. (Do we promise a Wii for straight-As or not?) The speech won't help them learn; it will not get them more motivated; it won't be a useful aid to real learning. I would urge RRISD to put it on a website and let kids watch it off-school hours if they so wish. A speech like that is not useful nor appropriate for them.