GREENDALE FORUM

Greendale schools won't let students see Obama speech live

Add Greendale to the list of area school districts that have decided that President Barack Obama's address to the nation's youth on Tuesday will not be shown live in its schools.

"There is a lot of talk out there about this issue. We are not going to enter into the debate," Superintendent William Hughes said in a statement. "I am asking that we keep the students focused on school - teaching and learning."

Apparently this includes learning how not to respect the office of President of the United States. Dr. Hughes is very wrong to do this. He's doing more harm than good:

"I am asking that there not be a live broadcast as part of the school day experience until it is previewed and deemed appropriate, as any of the materials used in Greendale schools should be," Hughes said.

It's a speech from the President of the United States!

The Wauwatosa and Elmbrook school districts have also said the president's speech will not be shown live in its schools.

Critics have said Obama is trying to promote a political agenda, while the U.S. Department of Education has said the speech will "challenge students to work hard, set educational goals and take responsibility for their learning."


I never thought the Right-Wing stupidity would worm it's way into our schools (so quickly). Congratulations, Greendale Schools!

I've lost a whole lot of respect for Dr. Hughes over this - seems Greendale schools has met the snob status of Elmbrook and Tosa. And I wonder what is really behind it: is he still PO'd he didn't get the stimulus funds to move the district offices to the former police/fire station? Is he, and the district's lawyers, that afraid of the lethargic CRG group? Or did a major donor to the high school, who is also a contributor to Republican presidential candidates, have some influence? Wonder if there's even a paper trail to do a open records request on the topic.

And if he wants to keep the "students focused on school - teaching and learning," does that mean that all future pep rallies are out of the question? I mean, they certainly don't contribute to teaching and learning.

Whatever the reason, there's a political science lesson here.

From Crooks and Liars:
On November 14, 1988, Reagan addressed and took questions from students from four area middle schools in the Old Executive Office Building. According to press secretary Marvin Fitzwater, the speech was broadcast live and rebroadcast by C-Span, and Instructional Television Network fed the program “to schools nationwide on three different days.” Much of Reagan’s speech that day covered the American “vision of self-government” and the need “to keep faith with the unfinished vision of the greatness and wonder of America” but in the middle of the speech, the president went off on a tangent about the importance of low taxes:

Today, to a degree never before seen in human history, one nation, the United States, has become the model to be followed and imitated by the rest of the world. But America's world leadership goes well beyond the tide toward democracy. We also find that more countries than ever before are following America's revolutionary economic message of free enterprise, low taxes, and open world trade. These days, whenever I see foreign leaders, they tell me about their plans for reducing taxes, and other economic reforms that they are using, copying what we have done here in our country.

I wonder if they realize that this vision of economic freedom, the freedom to work, to create and produce, to own and use property without the interference of the state, was central to the American Revolution, when the American colonists rebelled against a whole web of economic restrictions, taxes and barriers to free trade. The message at the Boston Tea Party -- have you studied yet in history about the Boston Tea Party, where because of a tax they went down and dumped the tea in the Harbor. Well, that was America's original tax revolt, and it was the fruits of our labor -- it belonged to us and not to the state. And that truth is fundamental to both liberty and prosperity.

Oh. My. God. Now I understand. Reagan indoctrinated all those schoolchildren, and they grew up to be... tea baggers!

During the question-and-answer portion of the event, Reagan returned to the topic, this time telling the students that lowering taxes increases revenue:

Q My name is Cam Fitzie and I'm from St. Agnes School in Alexandria, Virginia. I was wondering if you think that it is possible to decrease the national debt without raising the taxes of the public?

PRESIDENT REAGAN: I do. That's a big argument that's going on in government and I definitely believe it is because one of the principle reasons that we were able to get the economy back on track and create those new jobs and all was we cut the taxes, we reduced them. Because you see, the taxes can be such a penalty on people that there's no incentive for them to prosper and to earn more and so forth because they have to give so much to the government. And what we have found is that at the lower rates the government gets more revenue, there are more people paying taxes because there are more people with jobs and there are more people willing to earn more money because they get to keep a bigger share of it, so today, we're getting more revenue at the lower rates than we were at the higher.

And do you know something? I studied economics in college when I was young and I learned there about a man named Ibn Khaldun, who lived 1200 years ago in Egypt. And 1200 years ago he said, in the beginning of the empire, the rates were low, the tax rates were low, but the revenue was great. He said in the end of empire, when the empire was collapsing, the rates were great and the revenue was low.

The students probably didn’t know any better, but this is an idea that has been rejected by virtually every economist not named Larry Kudlow.

Well I wouldn't be so quick to point fingers at just one side. The fact of the matter is that the DemocratBlue and RepublicanRed parties are actually more like the, StickItToThePeoplePurpleParty combined. They do a pretty good job- at the leadership level- of making sure the people (you know, you and me) never really think too far outside their dialectic box. Here is an instance where the Republican President was opposed for his speech, albeit, the article claims, mostly AFTERWARD. I've not read the text of either speech yet so am not prepared to debate content. But, as I say, I am inclined to believe that most of the difference between Republicans and Democrats- at the leadership level, how they govern- is very little.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini ... 94347.html

When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings
By: BYRON YORK
Chief Political Correspondent
09/08/09 7:11 AM EDT
The controversy over President Obama's speech to the nation's schoolchildren will likely be over shortly after Obama speaks today at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush's speech -- they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue.
Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president's school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president's political benefit. "The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props," the Post reported.
With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. "The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students," said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. "And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'"
Democrats did not stop with words. Rep. William Ford, then chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate the cost and legality of Bush's appearance. On October 17, 1991, Ford summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the speech. "The hearing this morning is to really examine the expenditure of $26,750 of the Department of Education funds to produce and televise an appearance by President Bush at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC," Ford began. "As the chairman of the committee charged with the authorization and implementation of education programs, I am very much interested in the justification, rationale for giving the White House scarce education funds to produce a media event."
Unfortunately for Ford, the General Accounting Office concluded that the Bush administration had not acted improperly. "The speech itself and the use of the department's funds to support it, including the cost of the production contract, appear to be legal," the GAO wrote in a letter to Chairman Ford. "The speech also does not appear to have violated the restrictions on the use of appropriations for publicity and propaganda."

...there's a bit more at the link.

Ah yes! Right on! ANYONE who disagrees with the goals or agenda of THE ONE, MUST, by definition be a stupid-right-wing-nut. And probably a Fascist too. It just makes me wonder what kind of educational system produces such wayward thinkers. Can't they understand that B. O. says he is different and has brought with him to Washington Chicago's famous kinder, gentler, more ethical way of doing business?
I do fear, however, that it may be a stretch for even so gifted an orator as THE ONE to craft a speech that appeals to all grade levels from Kindergartner through High School Senior. The speech could be more successful if it were targeted at a narrower age group, say Kindergarten through Second Grade. That might work better. It would also reduce the danger posed by the fact that any thinking person with a maturity level above that of a Third Grader can see through B.O.'s B.S.

Do you find fascism actually to be right-wing?

Does that seem right (correct) to you?

its racism
not facism

Racism?

Wait a minute I need to know if I’ve got this correct. Is it racism to disagree with the President? Didn’t it used to be un-American to disagree with the President? Or was that unpatriotic? Both, I suppose? AND it was undermining the troops, wasn’t it? Is it still those things AND racism now? Or is it “just” racism? I don’t seem to be keeping up with the rules so well. Can you help me out please?

Are you under the mistaken notion that you can see the human heart? Actions are to be observed and, when necessary, their effect discerned or “judged” (be careful with that measuring stick). It’s really impossible to know what one means; we only know what one says (and does). So, as I cannot read your heart maybe you can explain your answer, that is, if you’re looking for a reply from me. If not, we’ll be done with this now except I am impelled to explain a little bit about what is commonly “misreferred” to as “race.”

There is only one race, the human race. Would you refer to people of differing eye “colors” as different races? Is there a brown-eyed race and is there a blue-eyed race and is there a green-eyed race? Would other eye “colors” make for other races? No, of course not.

There is only one race, the human race. Would you refer to people of differing hair “colors” as different races? Is there a brown-haired race and is there a black-haired race and is there a blond-haired race? Would other hair “colors” make for other races? No, of course not.

There is only one race, the human race. In the same way as hair color and eye color, basing “race” on skin “color” is bad logic, bad science. It’s a bad idea.

There is only one skin color in actuality. It is called melanin. Except for albinos we all have melanin in our skin which gives it a property commonly referred to as color; this is the basis of the term “race.” There is not really white or brown or black skin; there are only differing shades of melanin. Would an albino then be a separate race or be of no race, having no melanin?

“Race” based upon skin “color” is really an artificial construct. It’s an excuse- a dumb excuse- that some people use for dividing people into groups for their own purpose. Unfortunately that division, based upon a physical trait, is exploited by some people who find advantage in keeping people from working together. Some people use vile accusations, based upon that construct, to dismiss anything or anybody that they cannot or will not logically argue against or with.

Lawyers are famous for arguing the facts when the facts are on their side and the law when the law is on their side and pounding the table when neither is on their side. Accusations of racism are often the equivalent of pounding the table.

Accusations of racism are used often- and often effectively used- as a weapon to shut down the very discourse that might lead to useful co-operation between people who share a common interest (sometimes an interest they do not even know that they share).

So help me out with your accusation of racism, please. Can you expound a bit, please?

Its is not racism.. Not even one bit.
The fact is that the elites on the left have taken over the party of the people..

I think it was your uber queen Hillary that said while screaming..... We are mad and not going to take it!! Oh I see.... Its Ok for the left but not the middle or right...

Personally I think the kids should have watched what he had to say. It might have motivated some of the children. The idea of doing it during school was the hard part to swallow.

Drive-by accusations of racism that are false are a terrible thing. Any false accusation of racism is a terrible thing.

Do you know why?

Murder is a terrible thing.
Why?
Because God says so, right?
Know why?
Because YOU are- and everybody else is- created in God’s image.
God puts a special emphasis on murder because it is the deliberate, undeserved destruction of God’s most amazing creation.

Back to the question about why a false accusation of racism is a terrible thing.

Because racism is a terrible thing.

Do you know why?

Because YOU are- and everybody else is- created in God’s image. In all of his creating splendor- and variety is evidence that God likes to create- God made us look different from each other (identical twins might be excepted). Really, now, isn’t it great that there are so many varieties, so many different colors of roses. Would roses not be a bit less captivating if they came in only one color?

So when you – er um- when ONE goes about hating because of a physical characteristic that God used in his creating endeavor, then you – er um – then ONE goes about hating the very best work of God.

In effect a racist- a bigot- is hating some of God’s most glorious creation.

So to falsely accuse someone of murder – or bigotry – is a terrible thing, much like sticking your finger in God’s eye.

Maybe you’d like to explain your accusation?

Maybe not.

Maybe you were just suggesting it as a possibility and not actually accusing? If you are accusing, do us a favor so we can identify the bigots; provide us the evidence upon which you base your accusation.

Please.

Let us not tolerate bigotry, but point it out when we see it.