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2009-09-07 Home Front: Culture Wars

Raw Text: Obama's Speech to American School Children

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Posted by Sherry 2009-09-07 13:35|| || Front Page|| [11130 views ] Top

#1 The speech isn't the problem (even with that sorta narcissistic third paragraph. Couldn't go to the rich schools....wah....).

The problem has always been with the suggested "lesson plan". Call me nuts, but I always thought my kid's job is to learn how to read, do math, and maybe pick out the US on a world map...not to think of ways he could help the President, or think of ways that the President can inspire him.

Posted by Cornsilk Blondie 2009-09-07 15:04|| 2009-09-07 15:04|| Front Page Top

#2 Total agreement, Blonde -- It's not the first speech that is disturbing. It's the precedence it sets for the second, the third, the fourth, and however many more he deems needed to reach "his goal."

This is just one of many action steps in meeting his goals --- a Bill Ayers/Saul Alinsky type take over. (repeat post below)

Posted by Sherry">Sherry 2009-09-07 15:30|| 2009-09-07 15:30|| Front Page Top

#3 The problems are in both. But the problems in the lesson plan are more apparent because it's authors were no where near as clever and subtle as Obama and his team of ~~propagandists~~ speech writers.

For example, aside from the blatant attack on homeschooling, our fore fathers, none of whom attended a public school, did not "wage a revolution." They demanded and fought for their right as freeborn Englishmen not to have taxes imposed on them by a legislature in which they had no representation. They set up a government modeled after the one under which they had formerly lived but with safe guards to prevent the re-imposition of such tyranny. Zero should consider this well.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2009-09-07 16:03|| 2009-09-07 16:03|| Front Page Top

#4 Very, very impressive:

I'm here with students
I'm glad
I know
I imagine
I know that feeling.
When I was young
my family
my mother didn't have
Now I wasn't too happy
I'd fall asleep
I'd complain
So I know
But I'm here today
I have something important
I'm here because
I want to talk with you
Now I've given
And I've talked a lot
I've talked about your teachers'
I've talked about your parents' responsibility
I've talked a lot about your government's
I want to focus on today
I want to start with
I guarantee that you'll need
Now I know it's not always easy
I get it.
I know what that's like
My father left my family
I was two years old
I was raised by a single mother
I wasn't always as focused
I should have been
I did some things I'm not proud of
got in more trouble than I should have.
And my life
I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances
I'm thinking about
my hometown of Chicago
That's why today, I'm calling
So I expect you
I want you to commit to it
I want you to really work at it
because you believe, like I do
I do that every day
I'm working hard to fix up your classrooms
I know you can do it.

Posted by Besoeker 2009-09-07 16:08|| 2009-09-07 16:08|| Front Page Top

#5 saw his speech to the Union Hacks in Ohio (via Foxnews) this AM - he's back in campaign mode. Unpresidential, yes, hackneyed crap for the koolaid drinkers, yes. Unexpected? Nooooo

He's back in Us vs Them mode to rile up the base before he sells them out to get any healthcare plan that he can. He smells like desperation

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2009-09-07 16:09|| 2009-09-07 16:09|| Front Page Top

#6 If all he's going to do is to tell the kids to wash their hands and eat their peas, it isn't worth doing. The 'inspiration' the kids will receive is negligible -- "great, another adult telling us what to do."

I think you're right: it's the precedent for the next speech, and the next, pre-recorded and delivered with a lot less fanfare.

Posted by Steve White 2009-09-07 16:17|| 2009-09-07 16:17|| Front Page Top

#7 Since his audience consists of students from kindergarten to grade 12, he should have mentioned that after his stay in Indonesia, he did this:

In 1971, he (Obama) returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Armour Dunham, and attended Punahou School, a private college preparatory school, from the fifth grade until his graduation from high school in 1979.

(Excerpted from this Wikipedia article.)

If he uses his own life history to make an argument, rather than promoting it in the abstract, leaving out his attendance at a private prep school is certainly disingenuous.

Also no mention of his college records, and what role Khalid Al-Mansour played.

Posted by Whaviting Brown8159 2009-09-07 16:45|| 2009-09-07 16:45|| Front Page Top

#8 Long-winded Bullshitter, isn't he.

Posted by Redneck Jim 2009-09-07 16:54|| 2009-09-07 16:54|| Front Page Top

#9 Seems to me that Obama's first worshiper and highest devotee is Obama himself.

In order words Obama really does think he's the second coming and he can 'inspire the childin' simply by delivering a speech.

Posted by CrazyFool 2009-09-07 17:05|| 2009-09-07 17:05|| Front Page Top

#10 Another piece for his third memoir: Songs in the Key of Me.

Posted by eLarson 2009-09-07 17:06|| 2009-09-07 17:06|| Front Page Top

#11 as I remember, back in the day when I was in school, I would really want to listen to this pompous ass self-reflect and tell me to do sh*t I already knew. What a pr*ck. This will not endear him to anyone, and costs him cred and trust he was already shorting. Whoever brainstormed this should be out the door

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2009-09-07 17:09|| 2009-09-07 17:09|| Front Page Top

#12 elarson - LOLOL!

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2009-09-07 17:09|| 2009-09-07 17:09|| Front Page Top

#13 My kids will come home from school tomorrow and call or pres a jerk. Kids see through this crap. I cant wait to hear what they say.

Posted by 49 Pan 2009-09-07 17:30|| 2009-09-07 17:30|| Front Page Top

#14 elarson wins the thread! :-D

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2009-09-07 17:49|| 2009-09-07 17:49|| Front Page Top

#15 BTW, eLarson, I am so stealing that. ;-p

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2009-09-07 17:50|| 2009-09-07 17:50|| Front Page Top

#16 Just about a couple of hours ago, I did a stand-up for a local TV station about this - outlining why the Tea Party was so upset about it, and I think I managed to get across that it wasn't the speech so much - as the totally creepy lesson plan to go along with it - and the terribly polarized political atmosphere. I think enough people here kicked up enough of a fuss that most of the school districts threw in the towel and put it on their websites.
What I think most people feared was having their kinds singled out by other pupils and by over-zealous teachers - and lawsuits have been made out of far, far less.

Posted by Sgt. Mom 2009-09-07 18:13|| http://www.celiahayes.com]">[http://www.celiahayes.com] 2009-09-07 18:13|| Front Page Top

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