Cult of personality? I've expressed fears of such before, most recently near the end of this post. Bill Whittle has an exceptional video about how President Obama is using his personal logo in place of the Presidential Seal, even when dealing with governmental programs.
This is creepy.
Hat tip to Newsalert.
Update, 9/24/09: Some of the parents of the children involved are less than happy. Let's see how the bureaucrats handle the situation:
Superintendent Christopher Manno said in a written statement Thursday that the taping itself was out of order, but failed to address whether the lesson was approved. "The recording and distribution of the class activity were unauthorized," he wrote in a note to parents and the media...
"It's something that there should be serious repercussions for ... the administration here, and I think the school board needs to be answerable to the parents of the community," said Bowen. School board members did not respond to requests for comment.
Our word for the day: struthious.
Update #2, 9/25/09: The Pyongyang Remix :-)
16 comments:
This is indeed creepy. What are the teachers thinking? Will they be surprised when they are critized? For perspective consider the response left wingers would have to a group of school kids singing the praises of Bush.
Creepy? Yup!
He con-tin-ues to a-pol-o-gize,
and tries to pla-cate
those who de-spise
A-mer-i-ca and her al-lies
Ba-rack Hus-sain O-bama
The de-fi-cit he will grow
On us Obamacare he'll be-stow
Where will sick Can-a-di-ens go?
Ba-rack Hus-sain O-bama
Uh-Uh-Uh, Ba-rack Hus-sain O-bama
Uh-Uh-Uh, Ba-rack Hus-sain O-bama
Is there ANY record of children "encouraged" to learn nd perform songs about Republican presidents? Nixon? Reagan? Bush1? Bush2?
Hmm...I didn't think so. Who in their right mind would think this is a good idea? This isn't education--this is propaganda.
Mine eyes have seen the gory mess that is Af-ghan-i-stan,
Where the ones who are ta-king o-ver are the Tal-i-ban,
O-ba-ma said he'd send more troops, but changed his mind a-gain,
The drones are bomb-ing on!
Go-ry go-ry bombs are fall-ing on the in-no-cent fam-i-lies,
The Tal-i-ban will sure-ly bring them to their knees,
The me-di-a will hide it hop-ing no-on e-ever sees,
The drones are bomb-ing on!
(I have a nephew in the Army.)
I'm sorry, Darren, but that pale clip contains absolutely ZERO creepiness compared to this one:
Children Taught to Praise Bush
No "cult of personality" issues there!
Meh. Our little ideological Icarus is discovering that glibness doesn't do any better job of keeping you airborne then does wax and feathers.
This item already has a certain "haven't they been paying attention" feel to it.
If I had any kids in school, and their teachers were doing any of that sort of indoctrination, I would be in those teachers' faces so fast it would make those teachers' empty heads spin.
I strongly advise everyone with schoolkids to put some fear of God into these modern day so-called "teachers"!
chicopanther
Public school vs. camp....
chicopanther,
i hope that you aren't lumping all teachers into your empty-headed, so-called category. not all of us can be represented by the extremes -- it's just that the extremes are what are usually shown.
~maia_orual
Darren: Exactly.
I am sure the tune will change when teachers such as myself find that they are the "rich" that will pay for Obama's programs. Until then, they will too often fall in lockstep. It's the lobster and the pot of boiling water analogy.
Struthius ... Does that mean "like an ostrich"?
Yes. Ostrich-like. Head in the sand :-)
Anonymous #1, in comparing public schools to private, voluntary church camps, shows the sloppy, imprecise thought that's common on the left.
To think, they actually believe themselves to be clever for crap like that.
Thanks to anonymous for bringing to our attention another relevant video. Perhaps it may also be described as "creepy", but I think there are at least two important differences between these two videos. First the kids in the Bush video are not in public school for this event. The context is plainly a religious school or camp. The state is not compelling their presence there. Whether or not political indoctrination is appropriate there is entirely up to the parents of the kids and the sponsoring church, or churches. Obviously religious indoctrination is appropriate there. Indeed that is the purpose, I assume. Perhaps they feel that political indoctrination is also appropriate. Maybe it is. It's not a public school.
The second important difference is that the Bush video seems not to be political indoctrination. The event seems totally aimed toward giving a warm welcome to a visiting dignitary. That much seems appropriate, whether the visiting dignitary is Bush, Obama, or the local dogcatcher. I'd be glad for any school to give a warm welcome to Obama when he visits. The goal in the Obama video seems to exceed that considerably.
The children at the Bible camp are asked to bless Bush. That's a little too religious for my taste, but my taste is utterly irrelevant on that point.
It is also evident that the Bible camp people do not share my view of the separation of church and state. It is important to them that Bush, in their view, has surrounded himself with spiritual people. One might conjecture whether or not these people would like America to be a theocracy. But that's another matter.
I also read about the reaction of the principal of the public elementary school where the Obama video was made. She is described as being unapologetic about the event or the filming. The picture I get of this principal is of a person to whom the election of Obama is a profound event. It doesn't take too much imagination to understand why, and to have a lot of sympathy for her perspective. I wish her well. But I do want her to understand that in this case she made a mistake, and as the decades go by there will be less and less tolerance for mistakes of this kind, whether made by the left or the right.
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