Anyway, why hasn’t anyone asked about the “politicization” of our classrooms from Tim Pawlenty’s office? Someone very close to him happens to be dropping in at our schools:
The first lady frequently visits elementary schools to teach students about our system of democracy. The first lady focuses on expanding school children’s knowledge and understanding of the three branches of government, providing a special emphasis on the judiciary.
Under Pawlenty’s logic, shouldn’t he be ashamed that the taxpayers of Minnesota are footing the bill this continued “politicization” of our classrooms?
Want some cheese with that whine?
I wonder if MPaw asks the students to write down what they can do the help TPaw???
If only we had a teacher’s union that would blindly give union dues to one political party even when that party cuts education funding. Oh yeah…thats right. Education Minnesota still supports Democrats even though they cut education more than Pawlenty. Forgot about that. Democrat Teachers Union.
Yaz, please provide facts that support your assertion, including the effects of inflation, over the last two or three gubernatorial administrations. Or maybe four or five administrations.
Yaz, you have zero facts. Do you honestly believe that TPaws education shift gimmick will all be re-paid? TPaws irresponsible budgetary shifts are no different than a cut in terms of school budgets. The shift makes him look responsible while doing nothing to curb our budget problems, and the shift hurts schools the most. It works politically because there are people like you who cannot seem to understand simple accounting and economics.
Want facts? I give you the Star Tribune….
http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/41156942.html?elr=KArksUUUU
The shifts are the same as the Democrats proposed. Identical.
When are you wingnuts going to learn that NO, NONE, ZERO, ZIP. NADA Union Dues can go to political candidates or parties. It is against the law, called the Taft-Hartley Act. Quit repeating lies. Every Union has Political Action Committees, PACS, that are funded by VOLUNTARY contributions, NOT DUES MONEY YOU IGNORAMUS!
It sure seems to me that we live in a time when a small minority of loud mouths are running the dialogue. Why didn’t Obama tell those on the right concerned about him speaking to school children about studying hard and staying in school to sit down and shut up? It is almost like anything Obama does short of resigning will get criticized by the vocal minority of the Rightwing…
Pawlenty is proving himself an opportunist tool and his wife going around schools with her speech better be taping it to prove there is no brainwashing going on. Think of the children.
“It sure seems to me that we live in a time when a small minority of loud mouths are running the dialogue”
You’re right. It’s the far left wing of the Democratic party that claims they have a mandate to run our country. What we’re finding out, though, is that that’s just not true. Things usually work out for the best when calmer minds prevail. Let’s hope that’s the case now.
We do have a mandate, and you’ve chosen to side with a very vocal minority of morons.
Good job, C”Man”
CMan,
To you, a calmer voice of reason is Glen Beck.
Nope! It’s the people of this country that are standing up.
I don’t know about that… most of this seems to be the effect of two things:
1. Astroturfed public opinion, seemingly paid for by Insurance company lobbyists, Republicans and people who just can’t stand President Obama.
2. The Media who feels more obligated to present “good TV” than real news. A good example of this is why loud town halls composed mostly of interruptions and yelling made every newscast but not a single sensible discussion did. Can you really say that all the town hall meetings were mobs?
I have been observing an interesting phenomena going on in the web comments. Take the Star & Tribune letters section as an example. It has become a right wing echo chamber with a limited number of commenters constantly posting the same points. It really doesn’t matter the subject but there is a specific libertarian slant to these few posters. I did a count one day of all the unique commentators compared to the “few” and found that by a large margin the total was mostly multiple comments from a few Right wing posters compared to an almost equal number of posts from unique posters.
There is a logic to this as most people will read but not comment. We can see that right here as certain posters are very prolific and a few unique posters drop in for a post or two. Yes, I’m more than guilty of over posting. Now this is a left of center blog… with a primarily right of center group of prolific posters. (For a laugh try the Right-wing posting tactics as a progressive on a Right of center blog and see how quickly you get banned.)
Concurrently with a hesitancy to post is the idea that pissed off people raise more of a ruckus than the satisfied. Since the Republicans and Rightwingers lost the last election they are well… rabid. Go to any consumer comment blog and you will see the same thing. People are upset over companies doing this or that endlessly. The customers who are satisfied have no reason or stimulus to write into these consumer blogs to say good job or I got treated fairly. In fact those “good” comments are often spotlighted because they are so rare.
Another aspect of this… Cman saying the “people” like it is a majority of Americans, is the self censoring nature of the Web. Take a look at your own bookmarks and think about how specific to you they are… I have not a single right-wing blog bookmarked.
A good example of how self-censuring the Net is comes with hobbies. There may only be a few thousand people interested in a specific thing, but with a few websites they can meet and greet each other. You really think there is a huge demographic of American Nazis? Or is it that the disaffected whackjobs throughout America can find each other through the web.
(It really amazes me to see Cman, Kathy and a few other “intellectuals” spending the amount of time they do on this site. You would think that have a masochistic nature because they have yet to come up with a single argument that caused other posters to say, “Why that is a new way to think about this… you have convinced me of my evil liberal ways and now I’m off to join the Republican Party.”)
It’s a vocal, organized, minority, that will be playing it’s string out very soon. Wednesday, our President Obama will take on those who are using lies and deception to fight against legislation that will benefit the vast majority of US citizens. This classroom “controversy” is the latest “Terry Schivo” moment of the GOP. Now a party that always puts Greed over Nation.
CMan,
“It’s the people of this country that are standing up.”
What a misleading broad brushed thing to say, CMan.
You know very well, Cman, these are people who are misinformed by FOX news and right wing radio, and that they are the outrage addicts who were rewarded for their repetition of falsehoods during the Bush years.
What is interesting is the opinion of the Republican party is so low that a large number of these radical right wing bloggers and teabaggers claim to be “Libertarians”. Well whatever. They still agree with the right wing of the Republican base on every issue, every time.
Even Newt Gingrich is distancing himself from you teabaggers, as I imagine many of the more rational minded Conservatives wish they could too.
Your hatred for all things Liberal (Bushs true legacy) is a baggage you carry around your neck. One proven lesson of the Bush years is that the baggage of hatred NEVER solves any problems. It only marginalizes and minimizes any constructive ideas any teabagger might actually have. That’s why your party lost in 2008. Hatred will not win in 2010, or 2012 for that matter.
Republicans should be searching for an identity other than “the haters”. As long as you, Cman, continue to deny the need to do that, well the better it is for Democrats.
So I genuinely say to you, Cman, Great Job!!!
This is a silly fight for the Republicans to pick, and for political blogs to focus on.
Republicans since Reagan (including you) have focused on tearing down the Department of Education.
For you to say this is a silly fight to pick is ludicrous. You yourself have attacked the department on this very blog.
I have?
I send three kids to public schools. I may be an advocate of choice in life, and that includes school choice, but I can’t recall attacking the DoE as being a pet issue of mine.
Unions? Yes, I have attacked them. Maybe that is what you mean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4r6YCUtxfs
Pretty dumb.
Is it possible that there is a broader issue here? As I sit and listen to the rhetoric, it comes across as using President Obama as part of the ongoing attacks on our public education system. For an entire generation now, we have seen the steady drumbeat against our public schools — a part of their “starve the beast” philosophy. Anyone readers of this blog who have worked on a levy campaign should be able to attest to this. In the months ahead as voters in our state go to the polls to vote on referendums, this will be brought up again and again. If it is not, you can color me surprised.
Past Presidents have visited and spoken with schoolchildren. There is nothing inherently “wrong” with this. But we have another example here of an administration that has, in several instances since coming into office, displayed what is either a sort of naïve,
ham-handed lack of good judgment or, some might say, a rather arrogant sense of self-importance. (The New York photo-op flyover fiasco, the Queen’s gift i-pod with Obama speeches, and the much-touted Hollywood-style “date night” being several examples.)
This idea might also be another example of the “smart people” stepping in it again.
There IS something undeniably off-putting about wanting to insert
“a Presidential address” into classrooms across America on the first day of school. There IS just a whiff of a “Dear Leader” quality about it. And then providing follow-up lesson plans, initially designed to focus on “what the President wants you to do”, was an additional lapse. Even if we assign no nefarious purpose to the brain-trust of Administrative and Dept. of Ed. staffers who dreamed up this idea, the lack of good judgment…a sense that this just might not be appropriate…is again apparent.
There is a kind of adolescent aspect to this White House. The Celebrity-in-Chief needs to find ways to inspire more appropriate behaviors and decisions in those who work for him.
And parents and teachers will attend to the school students.
I gotz to say it again… ACK!
What country do you live in? You are upset over a President and his wife having a night out like say every married couple in America? You think because some low level PR hack wanting pictures of the new Air-force One over the Statue of Liberty President Obama is incompetent? A first day of school message of “work hard and learn” is some kind of communist plot? And on top of it everything is your opinion without a shred of evidence or fact that these things are negative. Talk about an outrage junky.
Kathy where were you when the outrages of the previous administration were going on? Where were you when Cheney was defending the war crimes that we hung soldiers for after WW 2? How naive was President Bush when he was forcing no bid contracts and a war we didn’t need on the American public? Where were you as Bush/Cheney drove our domestic economy off a cliff during the last eight years?
Look I get it, you don’t like the President, his party or policies. At least have the smarts to disagree with a real situation, a real problem or policy. Try to think things through so it at least appears your agenda is not to just complain about every move the man makes. Reread your post, you are making political “arguments” based on because a man takes the wife he loves to dinner in a nice restaurant he is not leading. Get a grip on reality you sound like a complete twit.
As always, Kathy offers nothing. Her dried up, shriveled logic could not even begin to allow an idea to penetrate what must be a musty, ill used cave of mental activity. But this issue is all the GOP has. There has been no gross violation of the Constitution. No signing statements declaring the president is above the law. No illegal wars have been launched. No CIA agents identities revealed. So now, there must be something. No GOP’er could conceive of a President acting within the constraints of his office. No President could have respect for the legislative branch. He must be plotting something. YES!! That’s it!! I can see through his nefarious plot.
Part of the President’s job as Executive is to inspire. JFK, when he announced that an American would walk on the moon before the end of the decade, inspired kids to study math and science like no other President before or since. The net result of that was the United States became the undisputed leader in technology and innovation and the world has benefited. So now, our President Obama wants to address kids and urge them to take responsibility for their education and to work hard.
Kathy, here’s a hint, quit watching Glen Beck and turn on MacNeil/Lehrer. Do a little research. Think about this stuff and view it in terms of what would benefit the nation, not just your own little parochial concerns. You might be surprised to find out that you are not terribly conservative. Paul Wellstone liked to say, “When we all do better, we all do better.” This phrase, so seemingly obvious, had deeper and more fundamental consequences. When we help the poor out of the grind of poverty, we, as a society, profit. When we help those who can’t afford medical care, get access to doctors and medicine, we, as a society, profit. When we inspire our children to work hard and take responsibility for their education, we, as a society, profit.
To: Richard and the in-aptly named amuseinc
It’s just so predictably entertaining to drop a nickel in you.
As always, Kathy offers nothing.
I suggest you enlist in the military.
Consider this… are you so empty that you feel obligated to play games on a website that will never affirm your very selfish, shortsighted and misguided views?
Kathy it is like dealing with a puppy that doesn’t yet know where it should do its business. So long as you keep messing up the living room we have to first rub your nose in it and then put you in the yard.
Democrats would rather rule of our kids than educate them. Look, the Democrats and the teacher’s union wanted to cut education funding.
http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/41156942.html
Democrats would rather rule ALL of our kids…it should have read.
http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/41156942.html
They just released the Presidents prepared remarks for the kids… I’m pretty sure Cathy, Yaz and Tim Pawlenty will respond as follows…
“That bastard how dare he challenge American kids to do their best. What kind of country do we have when the President of the United states wastes his time giving a presentation to schoolchildren? They don’t even vote.
This is communism at its’ worst when a president acts like Josef Stalin with a TV camera. Read between the lines my friend and you will see the nefarious purposes behind his words. Telling kids they can go to college if they try hard is just setting them up for disappointment. Telling children that they need an education to be a policeman, or in the military is just plain not true.
I expect the Republican response to be to the point and encourage American schoolchildren to ignore their teachers and determine to fail. That’ll show President Obama, if that is his real name.”
If Obama telling kids to pay attention in school is what it takes for 1% of them to become more productive members of society, then good for him.
Truly talented teachers will seize upon the moment to not only air Obama’s message, but also have a discussion on why this was even controversial. Let students of a certain age discuss why there is so much sensitivity about a political figure entering the classroom. This could not only be a positive message from the President, but also a great social studies lesson.
“Why this WASN’T even controversial”
Fixed it for you.
This episode of fringe political shenanigans shouldn’t be framed in the context of POTUS 44. It should be framed in the actual context that this has been happening (presidential educational addresses) for many, many years without much hoopla. Alternately, it could be framed in the context of the defeated fringe going absolutely batshit insane (birthers, deathers, tea-baggers, and racists.)
We owe it to our kids to help them understand what the news means on an intellectual level.
Fact: Obama is talking to students this week
Fact: It has made some uneasy, and has in fact created news
Let’s let our kids engage in some critical thinking around the matter. Maybe they’ll walk away agreeing with you that 10% of Americans are batshit insane. But let’s engage them and let them discuss it. They will be better off for it.
A social studies class’ job should be to teach our kids how to engage in an intellectual discussion about the country we live in which includes issues of the day. It should not be to frame issues one way or the other, but to lay it out as it is.
Frankly, I have zero problem with Obama talking to my children this week through our Public schools. I am much more afraid of teachers who may have your attitude trying to frame these current events for them.
I bet there aren’t any lesson plans submitted along with First Lady Pawlenty’s speech. I bet she doesn’t just drop in but asks first and does not demand it from every school in the state of Minnesota. I also bet that she does not ask that the children write a letter after her visit about how they can be of help to Governor Pawlenty.
Let’s face it, Obama want to be everything to everyone. He probably had this PR stunt planned a long time ago for the schools, but with his falling approval ratings and the healthcare debocle in August, his people should have known to scrap the effort at this time with the schools. Just bad PR advice and bad communication by the Department of Education. Tell why we have a FEDERAL Department of Educationa again?