In my previous post, I discussed the recent Obama plan to address the nations youth in an address to school students. My impulsive reaction was to come out against the speech, and especially against the Ashton Kutcher propaganda video. I am not changing my position here, although I am less concerned about the speech. After further thought, I let the inner conspiracy theorist get the best of me.
With Congress coming back to work and an expected intensification of the healthcare debate, I am imagining that at some point over the last few days the Obama administration had a meeting to discuss the following question: How can we get more right-wingers with Hitler signs out on the streets?
Answer: Let’s broadcast an Obama speech to the youth of the country through the public education system. That’ll get ‘em riled up.
Youth serves the leader
If this is the case, then this was certainly a brilliant plan by the Obama administration. This otherwise “non-issue” has mobilized Obamaphobes into a frenzy. As Obama becomes an increasingly toxic figure, many people, myself included, have the knee-jerk reaction to oppose everything that he does. For the administration to take Obama’s toxicity to manipulate those who oppose him to become sidetracked over nothing is smart. Well played.
Rather than oppose an Obama speech to students in public schools, we should be encouraging Obama to give more speeches. I think he should have a speech for the kids every day, and the teachers should have to keep the kids in during recess to watch it. To overexpose these kids to trite rhetoric, vague abstractions, and pathos driven banality at an early age, would be a healthy educational experience for them. Perhaps an education such as this might yield a generation of voters that wouldn’t be as embarrassing my generation.
Those who oppose Obama should be enthralled every time he wants to interrupt prime-time television, to give yet another speech. Ubiquity breeds irrelevance. Let us hope that those who pull Obama’s string to make him talk never figure this out.
I close with a quote from George Will:
In August our ubiquitous president became the nation’s elevator music, always out and about, heard but not really listened to, like audible wallpaper.
And some great quotes by Mark Steyn:
*The Omnipresent Leader has traditionally been a characteristic feature of Third World basket-case dumps: The conflation of the man and the state is explicit, and ubiquitous.
*Any self-respecting schoolkid, enjoined by his principal to be a “servant” to the head of state, would reply, “Get lost, creep.” And, if they still taught history in American schools, he’d add, “Oh, and by the way, that question was settled in 1776.”
*Now he’s giving a 112th [speech] — to a joint session of Congress — and this one, we’re assured, will finally do the trick. That brand-new Chevy may be rusting and up on bricks by the time he seals the deal, but America’s Auto Salesman-in-Chief will get you to sign in the end.
The president has made the mistake of believing his own publicity — or, at any rate, his own mainstream media coverage, which is pretty much the same thing.
*No wonder the poor chap’s running out of material. At the time of writing, one of his exercises for America’s schoolchildren is to suggest what you’d like him to do in his next speech. Here’s mine: Call in sick, sir. You’ll be doing your presidency a favor.
The president is not our ruler but our representative, a citizen-executive drawn from the people. It is unbecoming to a self-governing republic to require schoolchildren to (to cite another test question) select the three most important words in the president’s speech.
But, if we have to trudge down this grim road, go on, kid, I dare you: “That’s all, folks!”
Oh, wait. You have to rank the three most important words in order:
(1) Try (2) Something (3) Else.
on 
on 
Obama is quickly painting himself overexposed–I’m sick of his overly syncopated speaking voice. He’s been in campaign mode for 2 years now.
Youth serves only itself because it is ignorant and young. That’s why so many youth are Democrats.
I believe it was Winston Churchill who said if you are under 30 and not a liberal than you don’t have a heart, if you are over 30 and not conservative then you don’t have a brain.
It doesn’t help that many of the young spend so many years in college where not only are they thoroughly brainwashed in most disciplines, but they also live in a situation where their lifestyle is mostly subsidized by federal grants, student loans, and parents. We shouldn’t be surprised that the liberal platform should appeal to this group.
Ha I still see people in their 30s who are subsidized by their parents! I watched a bit of a story on Fox News concerning text books in school and the ways they are scrubbed of objectionable topics. For example, the issue of the 9-11 hijackers did not mention ideology once only that they were ‘terrorists.’ The brainwashing starts early.
oh mr. Admin, that’s where you are wrong. You probably just haven’t been to enough college. You see it is not the universities brain washing young people… they are just UNDOING the brain washing done by our red neck parents, and our undated religions. Ask any teacher from high school on. They’ll tell you how we can’t think for ourselves, and just let our parents, and various faiths make all of our choices for us.
*****The president has made the mistake of believing his own publicity — or, at any rate, his own mainstream media coverage, which is pretty much the same thing.*****
I had to address this before I began. Foxnews, which has drunk the Anti-koolaid and hardly ever praises Obama, is #1 in ratings across every hour of news. How is it that the “news” with far and away the most viewers in every time slot does not get to call itself mainstream? Is it because other journalists don’t take them seriously? That they don’t take themselves seriously? While both of those things may be true, it does not change the definition of mainstream. Mainstream is “the prevailing current”. If most people watch and believe, it is the prevailing current.
Now, to my reaction:
It’s the current level of discourse that allows one to forget that there was ever once really good reasons to be a conservative. Where are your Buckleys? Where are your Burkes? You have your Glenn Becks and your Rush Limbaughs. Buckley himself drummed the John Birchers out of the Conservative movement. But the Birthers and Deathers, likely the direct descendents of the John Birchers are pandered to by everybody fearful of either a ‘liberal’ president or a ‘black’ president, or both. And this is a tragedy. That people can’t accept a positive action and accept it.
I really love the Utah papers. I read the comments section on the Deseret News and simply marvel. “My kids are going out of school that day and we’ll read the Constitution. The Constitution is this year’s Bible. Nobody’s read it, but everything they like is in it, everything they disagree with isn’t.
Props for recognising the sillyness of the whole thing. But the fact that you ever gave it credence leads one to believe that the (mainstream i.e. most popular) talking heads can talk inside your head until you manually put on the breaks. Glad you came down from believing that while Obama was saying “stay in school” he wasn’t blinking “mandatory abortions” in Morse code.
I believe in a strong two-party dialogue. There needs to be a position, and there needs to be good, qualified, well reasoned opposition. I like to think I was that reasoned opposition in ’05, and I’d like conservative friends to fill those ranks now. Persuasion rather than “YEEE HAWWW’s” and high-fiving everybody who already thinks like them.
Liberals are not immune to this, it’s just so blatant on the Conservative end of things right now.
My two cents,
Chuckles
The reason why I gave it credence, was because of the Ashton Kutcher propaganda video. Both stories broke on the same day, which is why I decided to clarify with a future post.
I am with you on the Deseret News comment boards. There are definitely some crazy people there. There will be an article about nuclear waste, and the comments will turn into BYU v. U of U football arguments.
You have a tendency to bring up Fox News a lot, which is strange because I rarely do. I see your point, but Mark Steyn would probably label Fox as part of the MSM.
Or maybe the president just thought it might be a good idea to try to motivate kids to study hard and stay in school.