President Obama's Sept 8 Speech Just Doesn't Add Up

When I heard that President Obama was going to give a “students only” webinar on September 8th my first reaction was foreboding. Was this a normal reaction? Why did I feel this way?

I immediately remembered the Obama campaign “Change” and”Rearrange” video with children singing:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtGrp5MbzAI

I don’t know why that video concerns me so much. Is it because I feel the little girl at the beginning is being exploited to send a message she can’t possibly comprehend? Betraying a child’s innocent by having them display allegiance to something that is beyond their understanding is too physiologically engineered and contrived for me. It’s one thing to persuade adults with clever words but to manipulate children to blindly follow keeps me envisioning a movie of children being brainwashed simultaneously while sheep are being herded and rearranged with a broken record stuck on the word change.
And why did I remember that video when our President is to speak to school children. Am I making too much of this?


Was my foreboding because of the passage of HR 1388 Serve America Act in March? HR 1388 was well supported by both parties and it was passed as an extension of the adult community service AmeriCorps program tripling its size over 8 years, allowing for up to 250,000 AmeriCorps volunteers by fiscal year 2017. What was not well published were these parts of the bill:

Section 1201 - Authorizes funding for service-learning programs in elementary and secondary schools

Section 1202 - Allows the Secretary of Education to designate up to 25 Campuses of Service, for community service at the college level.

Section 1203 - Integrates community service programs into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curricula.

Section 1204 – Establishes programs for middle and high school students in community service, including Summer of Service programs for grades 6 through 12.

How does community service of K-12 students get tied to an AmeriCorps adult program and how does having young impressionable children involved in this service add to their education? Why was the bill hardly mentioned by the media and these portions virtually not at all. Where is the transparency we were promised? I can not see the value in coming up with ways to tie community service into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curricula. Touchy feely community service does not relate to any equation, fact, logic or data driven science or math class. They just don’t belong together. In our constitution there is no federal government authority to dictate volunteering - especially to our children. Giving guidance and a sense of responsibly is not the federal government’s role. Clearly that role belongs in the family at a local level.

Was the foreboding because of the “secret” meeting on August 10 with the Whitehouse and artists? Film producer, Patrick Courrielche, said he was one of 75 artists, musicians, writers, poets and others invited to attend a conference call hosted by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) along with the White House Office of Public Engagement and United We Serve in attendance. Courrielche said officials on the hour-long call -- including NEA Director of Communications Yosi Sergant suggested the artists develop and create works of art in their respective fields related to health care, energy and the environment. They would use NEA money (i.e. our tax dollars) to channel these art forms (Obama’s agenda) throughout America. They also addressed language they should use when discussing this in future meetings and the legal implications.

http://www.sodahead.com/blog/145555/national-endowment-of-the-arts-learns-the-obama-language/

This meetings purpose was to manipulate art to project a political view. Some of this art with be directed at children like the “Change” and “Rearrange” video above. The White House is funneling our taxpayer dollars into the NEA to promote its agenda. I can see why they need to look into the legalities of that.


So we come to the Sept 8th speech.
http://www.c-span.org/Watch/Media/2009/09/08/HP/R/22833/Pres+Obama+challenges+US+Students+to+do+their+Best.aspx

Obama gave his speech to our nation’s most valuable resource and was it was well received. No one can deny telling children to find what they do best and go after it is a bad thing. Or to say that not everyone can be a rock star or a basketball player and that you have to work hard to achieve. Obama said “The story of America isn't about people who quit when things got tough. It's about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.”
I liked this part he sounds like a conservative– he’s talking about me, my friends, co-workers, tea party goers. To this I can relate.


Overall it had positive content. There were a few places that set off red flags for me.
“It's (America) the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon.”
This is a nice history lesson but it gave me a mixed message. If it’s OK and even honorable to revolt for a cause, then why are those who oppose his views or express concerns at town hall meetings and tea parties being tagged as Nazis, terrorists,racists, gun loving angry right wingers? I just don’t understand the point of bringing up wage a revolution in this speech.
Then he said “I'm working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn.”

The federal government provides very little money to education. Education is paid for with state taxes - in fact nearly 50%-60% of everyone’s state taxes general fund go directly to education. You and I pay for education. WE pay for the books, equipment and computers for our children to learn with our STATE taxes. Less than 10% comes from the federal government. The money for education and the control of education policy is not supposed to nor does it flow from the President.
But the thing that stuck a nerve in me about his speech also resonated with students. And that was Obama’s personal narrative of rising from underprivileged roots raised by a single mother to the White House.

It’s quite a stretch for me to comprehend how having a father with an advanced degree from Harvard and a PhD mother with an impressive career that included jobs with the USA Government and the Ford Foundation counts as underprivileged roots. He also said when in Indonesia there wasn’t enough money for him to go to an expensive American school so his mother had to teach him at home. Obama moved to Indonesia after his mother married Lolo Soetoro who worked as an oil executive at Mobil. In Indonesia he attended school in Jakarta for 4 years. Not exactly home schooled, a single mother struggling or the log cabin Abe Lincoln was born in.
In Utah a group of Advanced Placement students with mostly conservative views rated the speech as generally positive. "I didn't know his Dad died," said 16-year-old Joseph Gibbons.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2334852/posts

"My Dad died when I was young, too. It made him seem more real."

"There was no hidden agenda," said 15-year-old Nicole Moody of Draper.
Travis Skene disagreed, suggesting the speech was a political stunt meant to improve Obama's popularity. "People will forever remember this day and look back and say, 'Wow what a great guy he was,'" said the 16-year-old.”

I agree with all of them. There were very good messages. It had a real personal touch. Find what you do best and go after it. Work hard, not everyone can be a basketball star. But something just keeps rubbing me the wrong way about this speech.

I should feel positive that our President takes the time to encourage our children. But when I look at everything combined I get uneasy. I’m left with the song I cannot erase of “Change” and “Rearrange” America, children K-12 community organizing America, American art specially designed for political agenda, recreated “underprivileged” background and a very nice warm touching speech. Call me a right wing nut. Say I’m crazy. But this nut thinks something is not adding up and before community service was added to my public math education, I was an A student in Advanced Placement math.
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