Last night, after 11, I heard my dad laughing - loudly. I went to his office to see what was going on. He had found this video on youtube. Children, in a public school, singing in praise of Barack Hussien Obama.
So, why was my dad laughing?
He lived the first 12 years of his life in Moscow and he NEVER had to sing in praise of the premier (prime minister). All his classmates, along with himself, had to sing in praise of the party and the glorious nation, of course.
My dad laughed at how, in a 'free' country, public-school children are taught to praise the Great Ruler, while in the U.S.S.R. that didn't even last after Stalin.
After watching this disturbing clip, my dad and I watched Glenn Beck's and Sean Hannity's reaction-clips. Neither of us like Republicans any more than we like Democrats, which is not at all, but we agreed with most of what they each said, nonetheless. Beck and Hannity also brought to our attention the school principal's response to the outrage surrounding the video. She allegedly said that she "would do it all again". This is a principal of a public school. Just like with religion, she and the other staff are not supposed to demostrate their bais and indoctrinate the students concerning political beliefs.
It is my personal opinion that she should be fired effective immediately, especially because, according to Beck and Hannity, this was not the only praise-Obama themed activity she had the students do. Do you think she should be fired? Or should she be let off the hook because, after all, he is our President. (Hail Obama! *salute*)
Note: This post was not made with the intention of being anti-Obama.
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Jeezum crow.
ReplyDeleteNot going to lie, I was tempted to shut off the Beck video after I heard the word indoctrination come out of his mouth within the first few seconds. I made it to about 7 minutes.
First Beck says we're indoctrinating our chillunz: well, perhaps this one teacher was being a total creep and influencing her students way too much, but saying it's indoctrination of "our children" makes it sound as if children all across America are having this happen to them. Beck alludes to other instances of indoctrination, but doesn't really give specific examples, and uses this one incident of a teacher stepping out of line to push his idea that we're all mindlessly following Mr. Obama because that is the socialist way. Return salute.
Glenn Beck says having this song is against values -- what values is this going against? He keeps saying having a song about Obama is like worshipping him like a deity, religious, which is therefore unconstitutional. But how is this song worshipping him like a deity? Is every song or poem we have about famous, influential people religious, by his logic? Sure, this song is in every way creepy as heck, but nothing about it suggests religious brainwashing. There we go, another attempt of Beck to get people angry at Obama by making it seem like he personally is, on a large scale, undermining family religious values, which is incredibly hyperbolic.
Beck then makes a grand leap to link this religious brainwashing and indoctrination to BUILDING STATUES TO WORSHIP. Not only is this imagery inaccurate, unnecessary, and a political perversion of children simply being enthused about a president-- this also brings totalitarian dictatorship rule to mind, i.e. Iraq statue of Saddam Hussein and imagery of people bowing down to dictators like Stalin. There we go, another attempt to link Obama to taking away our rights through imagery of dictatorship, which is an inaccurate picture.
When talking about the statue he talks about it being paid for with taxpayer dollars? Yet another attempt to paint a picture of Obama to get people riled up about the raises in taxes or stealing rich peoples money.
He then describes Obama as someone who mentions self every 13 seconds in his speeches-- this may be a fact, but he's interpreting it to be Obama trying to brainwash people with iconic images of himself and being self-centered and all-powerful. How is that accurate at all? When making speeches it's important to make it personal, and talk about oneself, especially if you're a president. Why? Because the president needs to make connections to himself to make his speeches more down to earth and influential and, more basically, the purpose of his speeches are to talk about what he himself is planning to do as a leader of this nation. I'd hate it if he talked about anybody else but himself, it'd be pointless.
He refers to a children's song to a "battle hymn of the republic," AGAIN conjuring up images of dictatorship. How can Obama supporters be considered mere sheepish souls saluting to his dictator ways if followers of Beck are the ones eating up his descriptions of Obama as a dictator who's taking away our rights? Beck is EXTREMELY over-generalizing by making this one absurd incident seem widespread, when it isn't, and by making it seem like Obama supporters LIKE the fact that kids sang this song.
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ReplyDeleteI would like to thank you. I realize now that my writing often fails to portray its intended meaning.
ReplyDeleteExample 1: "(Hail Obama! *salute*)" was intended as a sarcatistic, way-over-doing-it, joke.
Example 2: "My dad laughed at how, in a 'free' country, public-school children are taught to praise the Great Ruler, while in the U.S.S.R. that didn't even last after Stalin."......I meant "some public-school children". That in itself is shocking enough.
Pardon my epic fail, Shirley-- I responded to Glenn Beck's opinion rather than to /your/ actual post, likely due to the fact that I get worked up over him a lot because I dislike the way he comes to conclusions about things and presents information. Instead of reading your words separately I thought about everything in terms of what Beck said, and as a result I created a straw man argument there, which is entirely ridiculous-- apologies. For example, rather than reading your joke as a joke, I interpreted it almost immediately as being condescending, and then I incorrectly read your final asterisked line as sarcasm, and ignored a lot of things you actually said that were very good points to make.
ReplyDeleteIn actuality I end up agreeing with how absurd you consider the teacher's actions, especially considering the fact that she had the children doing numerous different activities which are really unnecessary. While I think it's great that kids be taught to be to a certain extent proud of their president at a young age, the teacher's actions seem very self-serving considering she wrote a book about Obama and is now perhaps pushing her ideas a bit too much on the children-- in elementary school I rarely, if ever, had a teacher express their political opinion to the students. Although I doubt this teacher's actions will have a long-term effect on the children, her actions are still very inappropriate and disturbing, and I think it's unreasonable that the principal doesn't consider putting some restrictions on what she can make the kids do. I don't necessarily think she should be fired, although it would be useful if she received a warning of sorts to stop her actions or else face that kind of consequence. Unfortunately, it does not seem the principal is keen on taking disciplinary measures, which just makes the situation kind of awkward.
Thank you, again; this time for acknowledging that mistake. I now understand why I was confused by your first comments and for telling me about the teacher's book. I had no idea that she had written a book about Obama.
ReplyDeleteHaha, thanks for putting up with me.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is unfair to say this principal should be fired because we don't know enough about the incident. First off, it should be noted that this song was a part of the school's celebration of Black History Month. It is a bad choice to sing about a current politician (because of potential controversy), but the song was simply meant to honor the achievement of a black man being elected president. The only mention of policy is that he plans to make the economy better. It is clear to most sane people that Obama's "great accomplishments" are being elected senator and then president. Those lines drawing so much outrage are objective enough to be put in a history textbook. These fringe conservatives are just mad that children are being taught plain and simple facts about Obama instead of the garbage that they make up.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I don't like kids being taught through song because it does sound creepy on home video.