"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Obama's Sept. 8 Education Peptalk Viewed by Far Right as Socialist Indoctrination

I guess it was inevitable that the Far Right eventually would be pushed over the edge of their own flat Earth, when the Oligarchs' latest acquisition, the Democratic Party, moved into the territory that Reagan and Bush had previously made safe for Big Business and Wall Street. With Obama now promoting the education causes championed by the Wall Street Journal's editorial board, there is nowhere for poor anal retentive nutjobs to stand except somewhere over the cliff. And thus the new theory now being advanced by the wingers is that the socialist, Obama, is using the noon September 8 speech to indoctrinate children into the camp of the Reds.

The screaming irony, of course, is that Obama will not use this speech for socialist subterfuge, but, rather, to advance the reform schoolers' "No Excuses" message that he tested out during his speech at the 100th anniversary dinner of the NAACP. That was another huge irony that went unappreciated by those who obviously believe, now 55 years after Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, that the new reality of educational apartheid is no excuse, either, for poor families living in abject poverty without decent housing, jobs, or any health care. No excuses, indeed.

So while the Hoper-in-Chief will no doubt give a good speech with many uplifting riffs aimed at instilling personal responsibility in students, there will be no mention of school counselors let go, librarians eliminated, pyschologists gone missing, roofs unfixed, windows still broken, buses that don't run or that have been sold off, teachers furloughed or fired, schools displaced by corporate welfare charter outfits, benefits cut, retirements diminished, salaries held hostage to test scores, schools shuttered because of an insane federal testing policy, children who must dodge bullets to get the schoolhouse door--hungry, without glasses, dental care, or even a grocery store where a decent apple may be bought.

The hoper-in-chief will inspire, not socialism on September 8, but a false belief in a fix-it-yourself-or-die system based on unrestrained corporate control that has replaced civic responsibility and caring within a democratic republic dedicated to improving the lives of all citizens. Obama will be as inspiring as Reagan, for at last it will be Reagan's message delivered by a man we had, for awhile, hoped would be something different. Who knew the Democrats would destroy the Republicans by becoming them?

6 comments:

  1. The wingers' diatribe would actually be funny if it weren't for the sad state of education for poor children. Here in Detroit, where failures of our local district are many, brought about by years of corruption, neglect, and racism, we had hopes for something better from Obama than NCLBII.

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  2. It's not NCLB II, it's NCLB squared.

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  3. Very cogent analysis, particularly the last few paragraphs. Pay no mind to the wingers, their job is to shift things so far to the extreme, that even the reactionary Obama/Ducan neoliberal privatization plans will look moderate in comparison. If the Duncan plans were even remotely left of the right of center, does anyone think legendary racist reactionary right winger Newt Gingrich would be on board.

    Here in the battle for Los Angeles, we get to listen to the corporatization troika of Barr, Petruzzi, and Austin say they are answering President Obama's call while decimating public education. That's the one instance in their adult lives when they've been honest.

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  4. Good points, and let's not get distracted by the wing-nuts rants about socialism. When Obama promised change who thought he meant even more of the same. Race to the Top uses game show hype to sell the failed polices of NCLB.

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  5. Anonymous7:09 PM

    We...hoped? Don't include me in that.
    One minute listening to Obama at the DNC in 2004 was all I needed to conclude that he was all hype and no hope.
    One minute. You only had to listen.

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  6. Honestly at this point after all the dishonesty and outright lies even if the speech is innocent, seeing how the norm is the old magicians trick of be distracted by one hand while trickery is going on in the backgroud, I am left not trusting anything out of this administration. There is no change here left and right is exactly the same - Progressivisim the ONLY difference is Obama is flying us into that brick wall at 120mph while Bush was only doing 80 or so either way if we don't wake up that sudden stop at the end is going to hurt.

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