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Respect the Office.
When President Bush the 1st spoke to students across the nation during his time as president the democrats decried it as a cheap ploy for propaganda. They were wrong. I have not read the content of his speech, but I doubt it solicited money for the Republican Party or outlined a plan to give rich kids more milk money in the hope that those funds would trickle down to the poor kids. (I think this might be the Republican's plan for doing away with reduced lunch for needy children)
Even if a president tried to use a moment like this to plant the seeds of some hidden agenda, it would not work well. It takes time, effort and repetition to influence the education of children. Surely there aren't many parents who given a single speech to their children and hear them go..."Hhhmmm...I have never thought of it that way, Dad. You are right.....I will never eat ice cream before dinner again! Thanks for sharing your wisdom with me!"
The furor over the President's speech to students is a lost learning opportunity. It is a chance for students to learn about the honor of public service and how lucky we are as Americans to have a democratically elected government. It could have been a moment when we, as a nation and a government, rose to an occasion and showed our patriotism by not emphasizing what divides us, but by celebrating the overwhelming number of things that unite us.
It is easy to be patriotic when the issue is emotional and plays to simple ideas of good and bad. "I am patriotic because I support the troops!" or "I am patriotic because I display an American flag in my yard". Those may be important signs of patriotism, but the often don't require much effort. Forcing yourself to respect the ideal and history elected offices represent, even if the person holding that office is someone for whom you did not vote or is someone with whom you disagree, takes effort. It also takes maturity. If students walked away seeing our nation and politicians displaying their patriotism through celebrating the promise of our government in the form of respecting the office of President of the United States, they might get the feeling there are reasons to be proud to be American beyond the Lee Greenwood song. Maybe some teachers will use this moment to talk about our government and the meaning behind the "Pledge of Allegiance" many students recite each morning or our "National Anthem".
Everyone who is worried about the President trying to use our nation's youth to obtain a single payer health care system or to promote gay marriage can relax. I am a teacher and unless his speech includes a proposal for a three day school week, he is not going to have any success pushing an agenda. Sadly, the opportunity to demonstrate the broader issues of what truly makes our nation strong and the importance of our system of government has been lost or greatly diminished.
This time out there are uglier issues of racism and hatred boiling underneath the surface of the outrage over the President's speech. I know it is there, but I do not think the people who believe these things are capable of patriotism. I am writing this to appeal to those in our country who are capable of real patriotism that requires effort and risk. I am an optimist...I believe our nation is full of patriots like that on every side of the political spectrum. We don't get many moments to demonstrate our solidarity, but we occasionally just need a moment to take a step back and acknowledge our existence. It is ok for the President of the United States to offer a speech to students throughout our country.
God Bless the U.S.A.!
Even if a president tried to use a moment like this to plant the seeds of some hidden agenda, it would not work well. It takes time, effort and repetition to influence the education of children. Surely there aren't many parents who given a single speech to their children and hear them go..."Hhhmmm...I have never thought of it that way, Dad. You are right.....I will never eat ice cream before dinner again! Thanks for sharing your wisdom with me!"
The furor over the President's speech to students is a lost learning opportunity. It is a chance for students to learn about the honor of public service and how lucky we are as Americans to have a democratically elected government. It could have been a moment when we, as a nation and a government, rose to an occasion and showed our patriotism by not emphasizing what divides us, but by celebrating the overwhelming number of things that unite us.
It is easy to be patriotic when the issue is emotional and plays to simple ideas of good and bad. "I am patriotic because I support the troops!" or "I am patriotic because I display an American flag in my yard". Those may be important signs of patriotism, but the often don't require much effort. Forcing yourself to respect the ideal and history elected offices represent, even if the person holding that office is someone for whom you did not vote or is someone with whom you disagree, takes effort. It also takes maturity. If students walked away seeing our nation and politicians displaying their patriotism through celebrating the promise of our government in the form of respecting the office of President of the United States, they might get the feeling there are reasons to be proud to be American beyond the Lee Greenwood song. Maybe some teachers will use this moment to talk about our government and the meaning behind the "Pledge of Allegiance" many students recite each morning or our "National Anthem".
Everyone who is worried about the President trying to use our nation's youth to obtain a single payer health care system or to promote gay marriage can relax. I am a teacher and unless his speech includes a proposal for a three day school week, he is not going to have any success pushing an agenda. Sadly, the opportunity to demonstrate the broader issues of what truly makes our nation strong and the importance of our system of government has been lost or greatly diminished.
This time out there are uglier issues of racism and hatred boiling underneath the surface of the outrage over the President's speech. I know it is there, but I do not think the people who believe these things are capable of patriotism. I am writing this to appeal to those in our country who are capable of real patriotism that requires effort and risk. I am an optimist...I believe our nation is full of patriots like that on every side of the political spectrum. We don't get many moments to demonstrate our solidarity, but we occasionally just need a moment to take a step back and acknowledge our existence. It is ok for the President of the United States to offer a speech to students throughout our country.
God Bless the U.S.A.!
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I must say I disagree with your central point about respecting the "Office".
First, I don't think elected office necessarily represents the ideals and history of this country. In fact, the opposite is true. American Revolution started as protest against arbitrary government interference in the life of colonies. The reason American Constitution is much admired, copied and concise is because it is built around the idea of explicitly protecting individual liberty from coercion by authority. And although this country, like others, has succumbed to socialist experiments on occasion, that central idea is still there, thankfully. In other words, you can admire, respect and strive to preserve the spirit upon which this country was deliberately constructed without showing overt respect for office.
Second, respecting office, regardless of its current occupant, may turn into undue, unwarranted and unnecessary deference to authority. Echos of that were seen when the Harvard professor was arrested in his house in Cambridge and the blogosphere and the media was full of prescriptions that "you just don't argue with police".
Third, I think it's no longer possible to create that kind of respect for office. The "trust in goverment to make right decisions" started to decline in the polls in the 1960s and it has never recovered to post-war levels. Media commentators have evolved from restrained reporting to taking sides and advocating. Blogosphere... Opposition of the day.... etc.
I recognize that there is a highly desirable element of orderly and functioning society when its members show respect for office.
But, all things considered, I actually think what's going on right now with the healthcare debate is much better for national discourse than a silent disagreement or, worse, submission to the party in power because of its control of office.
Nevertheless, nice post, thanks!
September 5, 2009 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I actually think I agree with you. Maybe I am amazingly inarticulate and also fantstically....unbelievably...amazingly naive.
While I am cynical about politicians and politics...I think there public service is noble in its intent. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely...AND human beings are partly built to be corrupted in big and small ways in whatever they do.
I don't think respecting a government office needs to be deferential. In FACT respecting the office while still passionately fighting for what you believe even though it differs from the "authority" figure...whomever it may be...is noble and admirable.
Choosing to respect anyone or anything is empowering, not emasculating.
However, you are correct. Our citizens are able to choose whom or to what they give respect. Not all countries operate that way.
Anyone can disagree about a policy and respect the right of those who oppose them to express their opinions. They don't have to, but they can.
I don't think the President giving a speech to students is tilting the country toward socialism or that is is political coercion. I may be wrong. If I am...I do not believe it is going to be a very effective tool for propaganda.
September 5, 2009 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not 100% if I understood your comment correctly, but you raise a very interesting topic (perhaps I didn't notice it in your original post).
If you are in the mold of the "original" liberal a-la the founding fathers, or a libertarian, or a moderate Republican (as opposed to a social conservative), you would probably consider the right of an individual to act freely according to his or her free will (without coercion by authority) as the most important value of our Constitution.
That in turn, leads to the question of how you would view the right of others to do the same.
If I think about it in that context, then I'm more than happy to respect and support any elected office that exists to protect such right by any individual, in full equality and without exceptions (consider, for example, proportional taxation vs progressive taxation). Or an elected office that passes laws that treat every citizen in exactly the same way (marriage equality vs DOMA).
Unfortunately, my general sense is that our Democrats are largerly overrun by socialists while our Republicans are overrun by conservatives. Each party has a large block of supporters who want a majority to treat a minority differently than themselves. One has rich vs poor, the other has gay vs straight, and both dabbled very generously in black vs white in the past.
Perhaps that's the reason I have so little respect for office and see no need to show more?
September 5, 2009 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are we overrun...or is it more sensational for the media to focus on the minority view points with in any given party?
September 5, 2009 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good grief, the largest protests in the history of the world against the Iraq war were NOT MENTIONED on the American MSM. Did they focus on the minority viewpoint when Bush was president? Well, I'd say those protests actually represented the majority. Let's define "minority."
This 'majority' has been roundly ignored for decades. Our corporate media is anti-democratic. They represent monied interests, which are the real minority. The top 1% are corrupt, greedy, amoral bastards. It's time for some anti-trust busting now. Five or six corps OWN our media, and they do not represent any majority. They focus in on the ignorant and amoral minority that are so full of disfunctional bile, that they are too blinded to understand they are shooting themselves in the foot. These addle-pated louts merrily further the top 1%s own disgusting objectives, and are looked upon with contempt by all. I'd pity them, but for the damage they do.
This same crap happened to Clinton, too. Constant reports of bogo-'gates'. Did that happen with Bush? No. Bush was a friend to the "minority," and Obama is not. If they can't use facts and logic, they'll make up any old nonsense to discredit him. Why not? It works.
It's time that we fought back.
September 5, 2009 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is how I read it. Looking back I can see that I failed at times to do so, but there is such a thing as degree. If I am guilty of not respecting the logic of Republicans over the last eight years, I could respect their feelings now that a Democrat is in office. The problem is, that after Clinton, and the blind seething hatred shown to him as well as this latest blind seething hatred shown to president Obama, I have to point out that Democrats are not anywhere near as guilty as Republicans here.
Show me the constant harassment and Congressional inquiries that went on with Bush and Cheney. Show me the constant hate speech and rhetoric on Air America, let alone the MSM. It didn't happen. The Republicans cross the line constantly on disrespect and out and out lunacy, and it's time to call them on it.
There was no public outcry when GW Bush visited schools. None. These vicious people do not speak for a majority, and should not be allowed to appear to.
September 5, 2009 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, Bwak, I can't help it...I agree with you. I also think the far right continually taps into the ugliest part of our society...the arrogant ignorant and the prejudiced....to win politically. I think the more moderate of the right sometimes give in to the temptation to use the same tactics in an effort to achieve their goals. It is awful. Or Aw"fowl".
September 5, 2009 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
my general sense is that our Democrats are largerly overrun by socialists while our Republicans are overrun by conservatives.
You absolutely must be either kidding or delusional. The Democrats are largely overrun by conservatives, while the Republicans are overrun by people of the extreme right.
Make a list of left-of-center Democratic Senators, for example. It's gonna be a damn short list. Now make a list of right-of-center Dems in the Senate. Hell, there are 13 Blue Dogs alone, and that doesn't count the either of the Pennsylvania Senators, nor Webb, nor Tester, nor...well, you get my point.
September 5, 2009 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nah, respecting the Office is tantamount to respecting the Constitution.
September 5, 2009 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
AND...the extreme rhetoric of some who oppose the speech are using unnecessarily extreme rhetoric to incite people. Racism, hatred and ignorance. I readily available and explosive combination of conditions in our country. I deplore it.
September 5, 2009 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am obviously versed in redundancy.
To be clear..
The extreme rhetoric being used to incite people is unnecessary.
There.
September 5, 2009 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the comments!
September 5, 2009 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a Nation we have a National election to decide who shall lead us.
Having chosen our leaders directly, places upon all in a free nation to respect and to honor the results.
Quoting from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs
“The Elgin writer says that we shall "jeopardize the best interests of the Socialist Party" if we insist upon the political equality of the Negro. I say that the Socialist Party would be false to its historic mission, violate the fundamental principles of Socialism, deny its philosophy and repudiate its own teachings if, on account of race considerations, it sought to exclude any human being from political equality and economic freedom. Then, indeed, would it not only "jeopardize" its best interests, but forfeit its very life, for it would soon be scorned and deserted as a thing unclean, leaving but a stench in the nostrils of honest men” Eugene Debs
Whether or not the discontent, of not allowing ANY DULY ELECTED President a respectful acknowledgemnet of his Earned Right as the Elected President of a free people, is based upon an underlying prejudice, is abhorent and easily masked.
The real issue is a rewrite of Debs comment:
In my opinion
I say that DEMOCRACY would be false to its historic mission, violate the fundamental principles of DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES, deny its philosophy and repudiate its own teachings if, on account of ANY considerations, it sought to exclude any human being from political equality and economic freedom. Then, indeed, would it not only "jeopardize" its best interests, but forfeit its very life, for it would soon be scorned and deserted as a thing unclean, leaving but a stench in the nostrils of honest men”
September 5, 2009 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
If I understand your comment correctly, and there is no guarantee I do..as I am slow....you are saying that prejudice in any form toward any person hurts our democracy.
I agree...I would say "stench of honest people" even though "men" in your quote is meant to be universal.
September 5, 2009 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just in general, I think you probably should have read Bush's speech before making an assumption about it :)
September 5, 2009 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good point.
September 5, 2009 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
All of these speeches to kids are innocuous little lessons in hard work and fair play. Looking at them with fear is just silly.
The reasons we are having this discussion at all are 1) A vocal minority of people who despise the president (nothing wrong with that in a democracy), and 2) A "news" media all to happy to parrot their bogus "concerns."
I wrote a blog on it too:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/fgdesign/2009/09/cnn-presents-conservative-pare.php?ref=recdc
Nice post!
September 5, 2009 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
OH GOOD I AM NOT LATE TO THE PARTY!
Nah, the dems were not wrong because w was an idiot.
A total enemy of the people
Of course our people are idiots because they re elected him and completely stole any type of belief I had in the country, just the same.
But MY PRESIDENT wishes to speak to them now. And fuck the rest.
I do not care anymore about THE OTHERS. FUCK EM. They are out of power.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JAXKIKehbc
September 5, 2009 11:50 PM | Reply | Permalink