A non-apology apology from a New Jersey school district
Bookworm on Sep 24 2009 at 11:24 am | Filed under: Education
In the previous post, I gave what I hope is a sincere, clear and heartfelt apology for a mistake I made. Whether I succeeded is another question, but at least I tried.
The New Jersey school that so its students singing an homage to Barack Obama isn’t trying that hard:
Today we became aware of a video that was placed on the internet which has been reported in the media. The video is of a class of students singing a song about President Obama. The activity took place during Black History Month in 2009, which is recognized each February to honor the contributions of African Americans to our country. Our curriculum studies, honors and recognizes those who serve our country. The recording and distribution of the class activity were unauthorized.
As I read that, they’re saying that, because Obama is black, a public school was perfectly within its rights to teach its captive audience a “Dear Leader” song about a sitting president. They’re only sorry the damn thing went public.
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Quite leaving aside the propriety, let alone legality of putting small, minor children with no capacity to grant permission in a video on the web, we STILL have the outright lie that it’s a song “about” Pres. Obama. It’s a song of praise to him directly, and personally.
This is so obviously wrong, and UNAMERICAN it’s hard to believe that degreed professionals employed by a municipality in the US would be so ignorant, and/or stupid as to allow this to happen at all, never mind DEFEND it.
What would these idiots have said if a teacher had made a group of Black and White kids sing a song of praise to Pres. Bush?
Read something by a fascist–can’t remember if he was from Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, or Fascist Spain–who defined the operative principle of his favored system as “authority down, responsibility up.” This video, along with a lot of other stuff that’s come to light recently (”I promise to serve Obama”) certainly fits at least the second part of that definition.
I used to tell my kids when we drove to New York from Pa., the one reason N. J. existed was to make the ride to NYC long, horrible and endless.
I think I need a passport to drive through now – it just became a Third World Nation with a second rate educational system.
It’s just so creepy.
I find myself using that word more and more with this administration.
And I simply can’t imagine what uproar would have ensued if this had happened during the Bush administration, what with the hymnal overtones and all.
This just unsettles me.
Oh dear, I was time traveling and just found this video of those kids all grown up with their friends. The tune is kind-a catchy and they still have those same jerky arm movements
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQBhxOFjCn0
The cynical operatives surrounding President Obama deliberately stoked this kind of “Our Great Leader” worship during the campaign and during these early months of the Obama Presidency. They found it useful in drumming up support and keeping enthusiasm high. Obama is, after all, “The Chosen One”, and hero worship surrounding him always seemed appropriate.
Obama himself enjoys the adulation and finds himself quite worthy of it. I can’t recall any other president who so thought himself worthy of personal worship. He never has quite said, “Follow me now, for I am your savior”, but hasn’t it always been implicitly there since he announced his candidacy? They’ve done it on purpose, every step of the way.
This deliberate stoking of personal worship was not present during his 2004 speech at the Democrat National Convention. It’s been deliberate only since the presidential campaign began.
I believe that this fascist impulse to honor “Our Great Leader”, instead of the Office itself, is an inherent weakness in modern liberalism, which has repudiated faith in a Creator, only to repeatedly find itself putting its faith in a particular Man instead. (And I say this as a confirmed agnostic, which leaves me on the outside of the phenomenon looking in at it; which I guess is why it strikes me as being so obvious and clear, because I see it from the “outside” so to speak…)
I don’t think there is a coordinated campaign to cause this. I think its inherent in the philosophy, which is why this kind of video keeps cropping up again – and again – and again – and again! Like the scorpion riding the frog’s back across the river, only to sting him halfway across – they can’t help themselves. It is inherent. That’s why the Department Of Education’s guidelines for Obama’s speech to the kiddos were so disgustingly focused on raising the kids’ personal worship of Obama. And its why these particular kinds of teachers see absolutely no problem training the kids to personally worship Obama.
After all, these are not videos secretly captured by conservatives troubled by furtive liberal shenanigans. The videos are proudly captured by the adult worshipers themselves. Proudly! Proudly they turn on the video recorders and then proudly they train their captive schoolchildren in hero worship for “Our Great Leader”.
You can find this within conservatism as well, but you have to look much, much harder. Commenter Ozzie once posted such a conservative video for us of a Bible Camp where an elderly lady propped up a ridiculous cardboard cutout of George W. Bush and lead the high-school-aged camp attendees in such a personal worship session of him. It was just as disgusting… but the main point is that it was exceedingly rare. You just can’t find many examples of this impulse among conservatives. We almost always honor the office, not “The Man”.
Among liberals the phenomenon is widespread. The problem for Obama is that he becomes therefore closely tied to his accomplishments. Every success implies that one should redouble their worship and adulation. Every failure is like the failure of an Olympian God – how could such a thing happen? – and the disappointment is acute.
Luckily for us, Obama’s Statist policies cannot work, and over these few years until 2012, the phenomenon of “Our Great Leader” worship will work to our advantage. The inevitable collapses of policy become tied directly to Obama himself. Fascist hero worship is an exceedingly sharp knife that cuts both ways. If Obama’s policies were to work, this worship would make it almost impossible to defeat him. Since they won’t work, this knife turns in their hands and cuts deeply; and his reelection in 2012 becomes quite daunting for them. I’m cheered.
Regarding Mikes’s point about conservatives honoring the office versus liberals honoring the man in the office, consider this blast from the past. Big Brother Bob Emery had a kiddie TV show in Boston until 1968, and for decades before had a similar type show on various radio stations. One part of the show’s routine involved Big Brother Bob raising a glass to the portrait of the current President while “Hail to the Chief” played in the background.
I have no idea if Bob Emery was a Republican or a Democrat. He was “Big Brother” for decades before Orwell wrote 1984, so Orwell did not inspire his moniker.
Disclaimer: I found out years after the fact that a friend of mine in college had once been one of the kiddies in attendance on one of Big Brother Bob’s shows.