Are you keeping your kids home from school on Tuesday?

HE’S INDOCTRINATING OUR KIDS WITH HIS SOCIALIST AGENDA

i don’t have kids, but i think it’s pretty crazy people are so up in arms about this.

Kids have to salute the flag every day (or in texas, the us flag and the texas flag, too). That’s pretty political, yet no one really takes issue with it.

Do the kids give a damn? No. Isn’t it sort of an honor to have the President set aside time to address you? Yes.

Im not in any way one group or the other, but i think it was pretty funny when someone said “Yeah he should read them a book while the country is under attack. Everyone seems cool with that.”

Still, I’ll humor the idea – even if the Republican party had any sort of legitimate proof that Obama is going to do such a thing or (at the very least) a strong, intellectual or philosophical variance against him speaking America’s youth, I find it hilarious that this is the same party that fights to have Creationism taught in biology class. They literally want to destroy fact and evidence to promote a religious construct that is rooted from a 2000 year old book.

My daughter is going to school. If her school had decided not to carry his presentation, I would keep her at home so she could see the speech, and then have the discussion with her.

If i was Obama, i’d promote myself to those kids who are kept at home as “The President Who Got You An Extra Day Off of School”. They’d love me forever.

@eponymoushipster GA!

the heck with snow days. we had an Obama day.

While my daughter knows who Obama is, and seems to like him, she is six and Tuesday is her first full day back to school (she started this past Wednesday to two half-days).

So, ‘no’ – she’ll be going to school. But I will DVR it and we’ll watch together that night.

obama is a moron…..

Quite possibly the most eloquent post on Fluther. ~, of course.

I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that this has created such a furor. Did Democrats keep their children home so they couldn’t watch a Republican president’s speech? No.

A) The speech isn’t about politics
B) Even if it were, wouldn’t it be better to view it and discuss it rather than screaming “Avert your eyes, lest the devil take you in!”?

@kibaxcheza You managed to state your opinion on a question that wasn’t asked.
I see a moron here and it isn’t Obama!

I don’t have kids. I wouldn’t dream of keeping my hypothetical kids home from school simply because Obama will be giving some speech. If the tables were turned, and McCain were president, and he wanted to give a speech to students to tell them to work hard and stay in school, as much as I hate the man, I wouldn’t keep these imaginary kids of mine home.

It’s ridiculous, @augustlan. People are legitimately afraid of ideas.

They are afraid of opposing ideologies, and they haven’t the slightest why. Hell, they call him “Socialist.”

Based on what’s happening to the Public Option (that is to say, very little) I’d kill for a Socialist president right about now.

Even if Obama was trying to brainwash the kids into loving communazi socialism, it’s at least another 3 years until any of them can vote for the next president. PLENTY of time for the overbearing parents to re-brainwash them back to their insane ideas.

Fear comes from lack of knowledge- in this case I think this controversy would be gone if a transcript of the speech was released to the public first. This will silence those who are fearing some sort of “indoctrination”.

@Dog He is now releasing the text of the speech the day before. I’ll bet you dollars to donuts it doesn’t stop the outcry.

nevermind, @augustlan said it first

she’s quick on the draw

In fact, I’ve already seen some comments indicating it doesn’t matter what he says during the speech because it is all against the backdrop of his ‘socialist agenda’. That was a Republican politician saying that, if I remember correctly.

Well, there was this from the Republican Party of Florida. (via PolitiFact)

My favorite line?

“The idea that schoolchildren across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans for government-run health care, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other president, is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power.”

Yes. That is exactly what the president will do.

@Grisaille: Just reading that quote annoys the hell out of me.

Conservatives are so full of… venom. This is absurd. Anyone who fears the message of a popularly elected president shouldn’t be allowed to have children. I hated Bush with a passion but I wouldn’t stop my kids from listening to his speeches.

Every time I hear about a Republican or Conservative “outcry,” I think of Reverend Lovejoy’s wife from The Simpsons when she cries, “Won’t someone please think of the children!” Overemotional, overwrought and under-thought.

Is anyone really surprised that some conservatives are withholding education from their children for one day? If certain conservatives had historically educated their children instead of indoctrinating them with their superstitious fallacies, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.

As for me, fuck no. I have no idea whether my kid’s school is showing this or not, and I don’t care, and as much as I wish Dubya would be hanged for treason, if he had gone on TV to tell schoolchildren to stay in school, I wouldn’t have kept him home then either…it’s a message he SHOULD hear from the President of his country, no matter WHO might have been duly elected to or fraudulently deprived his opponent of that seat.

These fucktard morons who have been scared shitless that Obama is some Socialist monster can and will be led to believe any ignorant thing, because it’s easier to scare people into agreeing with you than it is to educate them into agreeing with you, and since it’s all about power, those who want the power will stop at nothing to demonize Obama, because he so deeply threatens the status quo. I say let em keep their kids home and make it very apparent that they’re afraid to let their kids even hear the President’s voice. It’s just going to make them look all the more stupid in the eyes of anyone with two brain cells to rub together when the content of Obama’s speech is made public.

Basically, I’ve spent years trying to point out wherever I can how irrational some Republicans and Conservatives are in their rhetoric and actions, but that used to be a hard job, they used to actually be good at spreading misinformation in a way that was believable enough that those who simply didn’t pay attention could be caught by it. But since about 2006/2007, they’ve gone further and further off the deep end where it’s only the already indoctrinated who believe the lies and bullshit. Trying to point out how ignorant the “Obama is a Socialist who’s going to indoctrinate our children crowd” is like shooting fish in a barrel…and not strong, healthy fish, but slow, huge, crippled retarded fish.

Fuck no I say again. My son has been driving me up the fucking wall on his summer break…he’s the kind of kid who will get your attention BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY if you are not giving it fully to him. Which is simply not conducive to me actually trying to look for work. As much as I love spending time with him, I can’t fucking WAIT for the school to take him off my hands for a few precious hours of uninterrupted time to be productive each week. Hell, if they were to broadcast a long lost video of Hitler reciting from Mein Kampf, I’d still let him go and I’d, oh, I don’t know, have a FUCKING CONVERSATION with him about what he heard and what he THOUGHT about it. Geez, isn’t that the fucking definition of being a PARENT?

I wonder if there isn’t racism involved in some parents keeping their kids out of school this Tuesday.

Not sending your kids to school because the president is telling you to send your kids to school is retarded. The irony of this is astounding.

@dalepetrie One of your best posts I’ve seen.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic : Heh, you don’t say?~

Reagan talked to school kids about lowering taxes and there wasn’t an outcry about indoctrination. Amazing there don’t seem to be many non-fringe republicans left. That whole party needs to make a break with the crazies or just implode.

Send the kids to school. Period!

I say keep them home. Keep them home every day, especially if you work full time. Educating children is a secret socialist plot to spread liberalism. Especially education for girls. Better yet, if you believe the conservative rhetoric, do the rest of the country a favor, and lock your kids in the basement until they turn 21. Keep them out of the school system—it will lower the class size in many districts.

How dare any one insinuate that there is a correlation between educated population and economic growth? Fear the educated; that’s the American way.

My children will be in school on Tuesday.

I think I figured out the conservative plan here. They figure if they can cook up some reason for parents to keep their kids home from school on a regular basis, they will be bringing up the next generation of uneducated morons who might buy into their crap.

Of course it’s racism, along with some projection of their fears of violence done to them. Obama is no more a socialist than Bill Clinton. If anything, he’s even more centrist, or else he really wouldn’t have gotten elected, nor would he have been elected had he not had his uncommon history. A slave-descended African-American would never have been elected at this point in time, either. We all know this.

I will say what I believe it is, and mind you, it’s just a thought: they’re freaking out because they thought that a white guy like them would always be in ultimate power. It’s like they’ve been asleep for the last 55 years, with Nixon and Reagan and Bush humming lullabies. And now they’ve woken up to the fact that it’s a different world than where they’ve come from.

They don’t get that those white guys on top didn’t give two shits about them, either. Now there’s a guy who “doesn’t look like them” in power and they honestly think deep down that black people are going to unleash hell in revenge for the past 400 years, becuase that’s what they’d do in our place.

I’d bet Jung would have some interesting things to say about these people and their freakouts. Really.

I was SHOCKED when one of the schools I teach at sent home PERMISSION SLIPS allowing the students to watch on Tuesday.

It surprises me how people have forgotten what a moron Bush was.
Let the Republicans keep their kids home, so they don’t have to watch Obama. They can keep them home when they are teaching evolution too. And astronomy. They disagree with those subjects too…
Then, we have a bunch of Republican children who have been sheltered from truth and education, working at McDonalds the rest of their lives.

I bet the majority of the kids will zone out and not pay attention to his speech anyway. Especially the younger ones. The parents who are concerned about this should DVR the speech or watch it online, and go over the parts they disagree with later on with their kids.

Whatever we think about Obama, I highly doubt he could brainwash anyone in a one hour speech.

I’m sending my kids to school Tuesday, but you can bet your ass they’ll be wearing tinfoil helmets. That way, they can hear the real speech and not the fake “do your best in school” speech.

Honestly, I think some people will use any excuse to get up on a soap box and be in the spotlight. Ranting and raving about Obama’s speech in this case is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen. It’s worse than the birth certificate hoopla. I’m glad the schools here are showing the speech, that the Office of the President is something our community respects, and that our school district isn’t throwing a hissy fit over some imaginary agenda. It’s too bad the media pays so much attention to the crazies.

My daughter is seventeen and already has strong opinions about politics and Obama, and she is in all AP and Honors classes, so of course she is going to school on Tuesday. If she has questions about what Obama says she will ask them of me and we will discuss his speech. However, she is already firmly convinced that school is the route to where she wants to be in life so she might skip it in order to study.

My son is oblivious to everything but his own wants and needs. It certainly will not hurt him at all to hear a president who looks like him tell him to work hard in school. Hence, he will be in school Tuesday as well. Besides he has a vocabulary test (according to his teacher, but not according to him).

When I was a kid we would periodically be herded down to the cafeteria to watch the president at the time give a speech on the black and white TV that the school hauled out for such occasions. I fail to see what the problem is here.

I find it disturbing how people are reacting. Actually, I know I shouldn’t be surprised, since all the “facts” that some of them believe…but I mean, even if McCain had won and my son was in school, I wouldn’t care. I even took my son to a republican rally, because being a part of history, and politics is important…and you need to learn what the other side is about before you disagree with them.
I just find this all ridiculous. We’re now catering education to parents personal preference. That is just messed up.

What a hoot!

I teach in one of the most liberal cities in the United States and at 8 am Tuesday morning, I will be returning tests to my World History class and then we will turn to the fall of the Roman Empire. My students don’t need a “stay in school” speech because that is a message they receive every day. However Wed & Thur are block days and there is time for students to bring up current events to discuss for credit, Occasionally I give them a heads up about an important item. This time the hint won’t be “Check out the President’s speech” I might tell them to look at the reaction to the President’s speech and start with Fox News. Kids are bright enough to get it.

It’s situations like this that convince me the Republican party is on its way out. Putting a bunch of rabid dogs in a kennel doesn’t make it a pack, and all of the well educated, moderate Republicans that are wonderfully capable of leading (both the party and their country) seem to be disappearing, be it because they’re a dying breed or because they’re smart enough to just not want to get involved.

My son is 14,his school has let all students off for tues, as my son HATES Obama, he will not be watching the speech.

Doing that is purely stupid.

Then again, we’ll be able to estimate the number of stupid adults in some areas by the number of kids kept out of schools.

BTW, parents will be able to pre-screen the speech the night before online. Sure, not everyone has access to the internet, but anyone who’s unsure (instead of stupidly and rabidly opposed to something they know nothing about) can have access to it.

Considering all the inappropriate things on TV that parents let their kids watch, I’m very surprised that a Presidential speech would be one of the things parents complain most about.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic boobs? OK. violent gunplay? OK. adultery? OK. Being motivated to apply yourself to schooling? MMmNo.

I don’t have school age children, but I’m finding this a bit ridiculous. Everything about school is political- from the curriculum to the lunch menu. Why shield your kids from such a thing as a presidential speech? Let them hear it and decide what they think about it for themselves instead of filtering their input and molding them the way you want them to be molded. If you’re that worried about it, sit down with your kids and talk to them before and/or after. Taking them out of school because of this is a bit of an overreaction.

@eponymoushipster Uninformed, paranoid parents passing on their ways to the kids. What could possibly go wrong?

@The_Compassionate_Heretic oh….nothing

@eponymoushipster I thought we had finally cleared the world wide web of all the pictures of my ex-husband.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic Or possibly this.

@kibaxcheza When you say something intelligent, or even marginally so, we’ll let you know. Until then… Don’t bother insulting others.

[mod says] Flame off please.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic : Joan Walsh and I would agree that there is some racism involved. Perhaps not from every parent keeping their kids home but certainly by one or two of the instigators of this.

And I think that’s what really bugs me. Look, if you’re really afraid of what the president might say and you want to keep your kids home, fine. But do so quietly and keep it to yourself. Instead what we see is an very loud attempt to force this into being an issue, and an attempt to recruit others to do the same. That’s just divisive.

I won’t keep my kids home. I don’t know if they are going to show the speech or not. I won’t be surprised if they don’t. We live in the Bible Belt and most people around here never were too crazy about President Obama. I don’t understand the hype, personally. It’s just more media hype, in my opinion.

It would take a lot to convince me to deprive my hypothetical children of education. Many conservatives, however, don’t seem to have any problem with doing that.

It’s interesting that this is the first that I’ve heard of the speech. My children are going to school and I have no idea if they are showing it to the students. If they do, my children will come home and tell me their thoughts. They are old enough (15 & 17) to have their own opinions and I look forward to the discussion.

@Ivan Ignorance is the best tool of the fear-mongers and the puppet masters. No wonder conservatives want to deprive children of education. If they learned to think for themselves, they probably wouldn’t be conservatives!

I think that Obama is stupid. I think that kids need more of an education. Kids need to be smarter these days not dumber like Obama.

@switchboard: Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law and went on to be editor of the Harvard Law Review.

It took Sarah Palin 6 years and 5 schools to graduate without any honors.

Yes, it’s very clear from Obama’s education and work history that he is severely lacking in intelligence. ~

@switchboard Okay. What about Obama makes you feel that he is dumb?

C’mon, guys. Don’t feed the troll.

@Grisaille It’s ok. Trolls don’t bite. They just leave a bad taste in the mouth.

@switchboard And what about Obama telling kids to get more education do you object to? Because what you said and what he’s probably going to say in a couple of days sounds exactly the same to me.

Your ignorance is showing if you think that anyone can achieve the kinds of things that Obama has and be stupid.

It is an opportunity to bring the leader of our nation and his concern for our youth into the schools. Sorry, he carries a little more weight than the daily recording of “stay in school.” Anyone interested in doing all that they could would make sure the kids see this.

I think any parent or teacher who denies them the chance to watch what should be a unifying and perhaps inspiring event is just missing the point.

@Bri_L I think they’re missing more than just that point if they’re overreacting to something as simple as this.

Can’t wait for Monday night. I will be watching the speech then online as it will be provided for prescreening for parents. Or people like me who are just curious.

^^nutjob

Your racist tone in pseudo-quoting our president speaks volumes about you as a person.
I thought we as a society were certainly past the “Amos and Andy” days.

wow that wasn’t racist.~

The dude is probably more articulate than you are. Especially in view of the word “yall”.

I think there’s a Glenn Beck rerun on, why don’t you go check it out?

That would properly be “ya’ll.” Or possibly “y’all.” Cases can be made for both.

@avvooooooo that’s because he doesn’t know how to use an apostrophe key. look at his post.

@eponymoushipster Maybe he doesn’t know a lot of things.

@avvooooooo Actually, it’s “y’all”. Contraction of “you all”.

@EmpressPixie That’s one way. The other, “ya’ll” is not unlike “you’ll” in the contraction of “you” and “all.” Its a topic of much discussion over what is the correct way. Both are somewhat correct, neither is completley.

And yeah, I’m from Georgia.

@kibaxcheza – scary as hell and amusing as well, that’s what you are.

I’d say that post speaks for itself so I humbly suggest we stop speaking about it, in other words DNFTT

…. how was that rasict…..

i would accept not PC as i was talking like the mentally challenged…. however racist is not how i would describe that….

@kibaxcheza: I’m not accepting that. You might not know it because of your age or perhaps your education, but the speech you were assuming is directly related to the black-slave-minstrel dialect. Something whites adoped to sound like southern african-americans. Think (or read if you haven’t) Twain. You might not have been aware of it, which means it has permeated our culture to the point where it’s not as readily recognizable, but…it is what it is.

@kibaxcheza If your post was appropriate, it wouldn’t have been removed.

It was 1) off topic, 2) racist, and 3) ignorant. I agree with @breedmitch that you are using a dialect that you might know nothing about, but that is entirely inappropriate for the subject, even if your post wasn’t inappropriate for the discussion about a particular speech and the controversy surrounding it, not the person making it. Here is a discussion of Mark Twain’s use of the dialect we’re referring to in “Huckleberry Finn.” Here is an explanation of minstrel show. Educate yourself a little

@kibaxcheza ” i was talking like the mentally challenged” OK, I’ll buy non-racist, you’re just an insensitive SOB who makes fun of the disabled. Much better!

My daughter’s school, a Charter school in its 3rd year of existence, is not showing the speech. I received an email stating that in our district, the decision is “school-based and classroom-based”, and since the school ”...does not have the technological bandwith to enable broadcast viewing as a school and since there are not direct ties with our curriculum…” parents are encouraged to watch a recorded or web-based version at their own discretion with the children after school hours.

I guess that’s one way to side-step the controversy.

@Yetanotheruser – Yeah, I guess it isn’t as easy as plugging in the TV. :-)

@Sarcasm “communazi socialism – I like that!

I have to say, I have been making ‘enemies’ of my friends’ friends on facebook all week over this issue. With all of my arguing with ultra conservatives over this and health care reform, most of my friends’ friends probably think I’m the devil incarnate. Oh wait, that’s Obama. ~

@augustlan – I know. I can’t believe what I am hearing.

So far I haven’t encountered a Conservative voice that I personally know (I don’t really spend much time on Facebook either so who knows if one of my friends might have posted something….I really don’t have a lot of Conservative friends anyway), but basically point this out to anyone if you want to shut them up…

Q: Aren’t Conservatives all about taking “personal responsibility?”
A: Yes
Q: Then what part of Obama’s message to kids that they need to take personal responsibility and stay in school do you object to?

Anyone who can’t see that hypocrisy is a lost cause.

Tempest in a teapot, mountains out of molehills etc. Soon the party of NO will be the party of Piddlers. How many manufactured crises do we have to sit through? Why aren’t genuine conservatives taking their party back? Why doesn’t the Democratic leadership stand up and say “Enough”? If everybody in the media has so much time to screw around, lets give them forced furlough days and rerun some Huntley/Brinkley and Walter Cronkite?

There was someone on a local forum that said several days ago (before the speech had happened) that he had seen it and that kids were required to say a pledge to Obama.

Sometimes idiocy is astounding. And people wonder why I don’t date in this area.

@avvooooooo you mean the near the short bus school? <snicker>

Hey! My son rides the short bus and even he is bright enough to understand what Obama is saying!

@Darwin then he’s got a leg up on sooo many people. ;)

Well, he’s certainly smarter than Louisiana Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. who spoke for the Republicans in the official rebuttal.

Oh that rebuttal was sad…

The general response from the far right is he must have changed the speech. When asked for proof they say they have none but he must have because it wasn’t the speech they predicted.

If I were a suspicious kind of person, I would think a Democratic staffer floated a false rumor and the conservatives fell for it, making ttemselves look like idiots. It’s difficult to believe they went so rabidly wrong on their own.

My son told me that they showed the speech during lunch at his high school. According to him hardly anyone paid attention.

@jonsblond I gotta say, it was very boring.
I’m sure it will inspire some kids to start working harder, but it was definitely boring. I think he went way overboard.

i think bobby jindal should have given the speech again. he does a great kermit the frog impression.