According to Fox News,
The commissioner of New Jersey's Department of Education ordered a review on Friday following the posting of a YouTube video depicting school children singing the praises of President Obama.Video of the students at the Burlington, N.J., school shows them singing songs seemingly overflowing with campaign slogans and praise for "Barack Hussein Obama," repeatedly chanting the president's name and celebrating his accomplishments, including his "great plans" to "make this country's economy No. 1 again."
One song that the children were taught quotes directly from the spiritual "Jesus Loves the Little Children," though Jesus' name is replaced with Obama's: "He said red, yellow, black or white/All are equal in his sight. Barack Hussein Obama."
There were apparently death threats sent to the principal; of course, such threats are crimes, and should be punished. But I would hope that those responsible for the school project are properly disciplined as well; public school classrooms shouldn't be used to sing the praises of any sitting (or recent) political figure, whether Bush or Obama or anyone else.
That's not a constitutional matter — there's no Establishment Clause for political speech, and of course schools do routinely glorify past political figures, whether Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, or what have you. They also rightly express a calm respect for current elected officials; when an official comes to visit, for instance, it's proper for teachers to give the normal praise offered such visitors, and for students to join in.
But that some degree of ideological indoctrination and glorification is inevitable in government-run schools, and is in fact one of the purposes of such schools (which have long been justified as means of assimilating children into American democratic culture), doesn't mean that it's proper to lead children in songs praising the current President or particular aspects of his political agenda ("Hooray, Mr. President we honor your great plans / To make this country's economy number one again!"). I would have thought that this was pretty clear, and it probably is to most teachers in most schools — but not, unfortunately, in this instance.
UPDATE: Incidentally, the 2006 "Congress, Bush and FEMA / People across our land / Together have come to rebuild us and we join them hand-in-hand!" schoolchildren's song to First Lady Laura Bush is pretty bad, too -- not quite the same, even if it was organized as a public school activity (which I suspect would indeed be so), since it didn't involve such extensive praise of a particular current political figure, but also not the sort of thing that schools should be doing.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Some Thoughts on Multiple Blog Posts:
- "The Principal of a New Jersey Elementary School "
- "New Low: Beck and Right-Wing Media Minions Fearmongering About Kids to Attack Progressives":
- "School Children Singing the Praises of President Obama" (Apparently as a Public School Class Project):
This of course assumes they're aware of hypocrisy. I'm not that's a valid assumption.
Pretty sure that all of the Obama supporters? Somebody wasn't paying attention on quantifiers-and-qualifiers day in English class during their public school education!
If he was taught at a school like this, who could blame him?
Actually, who cares?!
There you go, William Casey. I suspect that Angus and I aren't alone. Feeling better about America yet?
Hmm, so you're saying that Obama supporters are breeding a generation of dunces who turn out to be Republicans?
It's not even singing. It's more like chanting.
Not to mention the child speaker at the UN lecturing world leaders on climate change.
We must remember it's "all for the children." That makes everything OK.
Hitler. Never forget Hitler.
That said, the fact that this is a front news story on Fox News shows you what a joke the conservative movement is nowadays. This is the most important thing happening right now? Really!?
Conservatives and their marginal obsessions are truly ridiculous sometimes.
Don't know that I can agree that they're turning out as Republicans, but it is interesting that the current administration's answer to various problems is to reduce our choices. Rather than educate people so they can make good choices, they just force people into playpens with fewer "bad" choices.
Since it seems to be pedantic grammar day at the good ol' VC, I'm going to stick my neck out and say that I don't see the problem with the original statement. Grammatically, that is. I will withhold comment on any political aspect.
The modifier "pretty," meant to indicate something less than 100% confidence, is applied to "sure," not to "all." That is, the statement is equivalent to "I have some high, but less than full, confidence that [some condition exists]." Whether the condition does in fact exist or not doesn't change the construction.
I believe you got your town hall talking points mixed up with the talking points for the comment for this post.
Ok :)
It was certainly inappropriate, but aren't there more important issues facing America's schoolchildren, such as the quality of their education (to which this is only marginally related) or the quality of their healthcare?
Fox and the conservative media are emphasizing this for the same reason they are emphasizing the ACORN story: it makes the President look bad (though it shouldn't). If Fox and the conservative media actually cared about children, we'd be seeing specials on Fox discussing the real issues facing them - not a stupid episode touching on 18 kids. But they don't. They care about partisan politics.
Ditto on this wise thought. And I agree with California mom -- what could possibly be the purpose except to make the teachers and principle feel good?
I'm even a little creeped out when teachers teach that our system of government is the 'best in the world' or other qualifiers. I'm in favor of instilling patriotism in kids, but not indoctrination, and there is a fine line between the two. I'm sure reasonable minds can disagree on where the line is, but we should all at least agree that the line exists.
Do you think that comparing Obama to the leader of North Korea enhances or detracts from your credibility?
Obama songs are a popular thing. Obama is a musical name; Bush is not. Obama appeals to young people; John McCain does not.
From the top of my head, I can think of at least 15 songs praising Barack Obama. Some are pretty good. "People Want Change" and "Stand Up and Rock Barack" are the best ones.
Capleton - People Want Change (So They Send for Obama)
Mavado - We Need Barack
Sizzla - Black Man in the White House
Jahman &Pressure - Stand Up and Rock Barack
Cocoa Tea - Barack Obama
Gappy Ranks - Obama (aka Black President)
J Murj - Barack Obama
Ajamu - Rally Round Obama
Lushy Banton - Obama
Papa Michigan - Barack Obama
Black Rasta - Obama
1. I think it's pretty stupid no matter which political figure they're praising / singing about. Completely unacceptable.
2. It's not like this was Obama forcing school kids to sing his praises. It was (apparently) some idiot teacher somewhere.
3. Only trolls think that Obama supporters have to support everything that's ever said or done is his name (or for that matter every decision made by him personally), just as I'm sure you don't support everything done by or for President Bush.
4. I love the ominous music playing in the background of the video...
5. Oh wait, you're right. I am pissed, because now this gives trolls ammunition to say that school children of America are being indoctrinated.
Obama is our first African-American president, (or person of any color other than white). We have only had 6 african-american senators in the history of this country. .
This is as big a deal as Nelson Mandela becoming president of South Africa. I believe school children were singing Mandela's praises as well, but I don't remember any discussion in this country of how that showed that he was like Hitler or Castro.
You can disagree with Obama's policies all you want (and I certainly do - I am very disappointed with the Patriot Act stance). But he will be (and should be) celebrated like Booker T. Washington, and other African-American pioneers. His election was a significant break-through for a large segment of the population.
This is not like a class singing Bill Clinton's praises.
A lot of schools are named after local figures of note. Often past members of school boards, principals, mayors, and the like. Maybe the Arkansas Bernice Young is a different person, or maybe she moved at some point in her life and made a similar contribution to some Arkansas town.
Wow. And 3 of those 6 were appointed and not popularly elected.
Barack was the third elected black senator in the history of the USA.
Stupid songs
Poor singing
and Wrong
I wouldn't have a problem with celebrating that, but the song goes further -- "including his "great plans" to "make this country's economy No. 1 again.""
Do you think mischaracterizing other posts enhances or detracts from your credibility.
What should be apparent to any reader is that Houston Lawyer was compaing the behavior of Obama's followers to North Koreans, not comparing the Obama to Kim Jong Il.
Houston Lawyer didn't "compar[e] Obama to the leader of North Korea." He indicated that Obama's supporters were fostering a cult of personality like the one enjoyed by the leader of North Korea. And in the case of these particular supporters, the comparison seems apt enough, given that "[o]ne song that the children were taught quotes directly from the spiritual 'Jesus Loves the Little Children,' though Jesus' name is replaced with Obama's."
If we're going to fund these things in our public school, I demand equal time for RAP !!
(None of this bullsh*t Protestant Christian "Jesus Loves the Little Children" musical nonsense. That is sooooo yesterday!!)
See Laura(southernxyl)'s link earlier:
My god, really, I hadn't realized! He's black! Why wasn't I told.
No, not really. If he had been elected in 1868, I think your point would be stronger. If ex-slaves were a majority in 1868 that is.
So oppression of a minority matters less? Maybe you didn't see "Eye on the Prize" like I did in elementary school, but a good many people felt like we had apartheid here until the '60's. Or maybe you thought things were cool then. If you don't think that we had apartheid here, maybe you could explain how the disenfranchising Jim Crow laws and consequence-free lynchings that happened here were different. Maybe separate but equal was a-ok?
Oh, it's not as bad because they didn't say the name as much? Singing the praises of Congress is ok, as long as they weren't using their names? Rationalize much?
I must have missed where CNN went crazy over this.
Were the enthusiastic supporters of Ronald Reagan also fostering a cult of personality?
I think the real problem is that conservatives do not like the fact that Obama is very charismatic, just like Reagan was very charismatic. So, they want to denigrate that, with these absurd comparisons.
The "cult of personality" surrounding the leader of North Korea is not voluntary -- in contrast to the enthusiastic support enjoyed by both Ronald Reagan or Barack Obama.
So we know that it doesn't matter to Bob from Ohio that Obama is black - that doesn't detract from the fact that it does matter to others. Bob, if you know any black people, maybe you can ask them. I personally think it would have been as big a deal to the country if Michael Steele had been the first african-american president.
It will be a great day when race really doesn't matter. And I think reasonable minds can agree that the video linked by Laura shows a much better example of quality juvenile indoctrination.
What public school children do at the behest of the authority figures in charge of them at school also generally is not voluntary in any meaningful sense of the word.
Not quite the same, meaning not quite as bad? It appears to have been organized by government officials (it was at an official White House event). At least the current incident was organized by some loony teacher acting independently of the government. Lyrics like: "Congress, Bush and FEMA, People across our land, Together have come to rebuild us, and we join them hand-in-hand!" aren't on the same level, even when explicitly organized by White House staff?
It's cool to exploit children for political purposes, as long as it's your party. Otherwise it's indoctrination. (That's more directed at FoxNews than you EV).
I applaud you for at least being willing to point out that similar events have occurred in the past under other administrations.
President Reagan's speech to school children in 1988 may also interest you (if you weren't already aware of it). Note especially the Q&A session at the bottom, which includes things such as the following exchange:
Yet Obama's speech to school children, which only focused on the need for education, crossed the line for some.
I admit in advance that this may be an overstatement (but it probably isn't since it was at a White House event attened by both the President and the First Lady).
I do not think that the exercises at the school are appropriate. However, I also do not think that this event qualifies as first page news.
Further, this isolate incident at some school in New Jersey is obviously not representative of the support that Obama has received, so your point is totally irrelevant.
The analogies to North Korea that some on the right have decided to make tells us more about how these people are embracing the fringe, probably never to return, more than it tells us anything substantive.
Me? I'm a liberal, jerking knee and all, and I wish we'd go back to the days when you had to be dead to have anything named after you. Better yet, dead 25 years. And as for glorification, that should require at least 100 years hindsight and should always be accompanied by a detailed list of the object's faults.
Does the singing of America the Beautiful count as glorification? I'm just asking, since last time I checked the United States aren't dead yet, much less 100 years.
Correct. The attempted correction was itself erroneous.
... The song, and the principal, are obnoxiously stupid, but what else is new.
I expect the GOP (and their "libertarian" fellow travelers) to begin barking about "working towards the President" along the lines of the "working towards the Fuehrer" motto.
Oh, wait.
(Scary game: imagine some particular manifestation of dumbassery, and then use Google to see whether it already in fact exists.)
Not even close and RR never encouraged it either. Unless you're willing to provide evidence of such cult of personality around RR.
Seriously, the song uses a well-known verse from a Jesus song, and mixes that Church song with a "worship-the-State" song. In other contexts, the mere use of religious texts or music, based on the listeners' ability to recongnize them, have been lawsuit material.
Just this month, the 9th Circuit upheld a school's decision to veto an INSTRUMENTAL performance of "Ave Maria" at graduation. School said the title alone, and people's recognition of it, was enough to justify the school's concern about avoiding an Establishment violation. Granted, the case was not a direct Establishment claim, but was the school's defense against the student's claims of free speech and "reverse Establishment," i.e., violating Estab. by being hostile to religion. But this common defense is, in effect, a derivative Establishment analysis.
Also, several years ago, a 6th Circuit panel used a similar theory when it initially struck down (before en banc court reversed course) Ohio's state motto, "With God, All Things Are Possible." The court's theory was not that the "God" statement alone was a problem. Rather, it was that the line was a quote from Matthew, and was spoken by Jesus, so that the reasonable observer would connect that and perceive and endorsement of Christianity in particular, not generic theism.
As between the percentage of kids here who know the "Jesus" origins of the borrowed verse, versus the proportion of Ohio citizens who knew their motto's origin, the kids are higher.
I'm not saying that makes such a charge right, and in fact, I think the 6th circuit panel was wrong. But I do think it makes an Establishment Clause claim here within range of what some courts have found.
Why not? Isn't there reasonable expectation that those kids will be exposed to a great dose of criticism of the political figures in question as they'll grow to make up their own political preferences? Fearmongerers - on any side - may raise the hazards of the cult of personality in autocratic governments as a point of comparison, but this point strikes me as an half-starved one in light of the vivid freedom of speech and freedom of thought in the American political arena.
Should children be thought to show the greatest regards to whoever is in office, cynicism and criticism will certainly catch up to them before they'll be old enough to cast their first vote.
Well, fairness is certainly a concept that little children get more easily than big words like "revenue", or the idea that the government taxes us primarily to get revenue in order to do the things we have charged it to do, rather than to exercise fairness at the expense of getting revenue. So maybe Obama's response to Gibson would have been better suited for the schoolkids.
In all seriousness, if a schoolkid asks a president, whether Republican or DemocratIC, a question, I don't think it's indoctrination if the president answers it according to his own tenets and not that of the opposing party.
Aren't we talking about the indoctrination of our children here? And how "liberals" (or "progressives") have a monopoly on that.
(I hate to sound like a conspiracy nut or something but...) As if that middle school kid came up with that question on her own. (Maybe a conservative school teacher helped her... Kidding, obviously I have no evidence of that)
But hey, you can also find this little nugget in the body of his actual speech:
Obama is not Mandela. The US is not South Africa. If you can't see the differences for yourself, I'm not going to convince you.
Seriously, if Obama were to tell a bunch of schoolkids this gem about raising rates even if revenues fall because it's more important to be fair, that's one thing. For the kids to be taught to change "Jesus loves the little children" into a song about the wonderfulness of Obama - that's a completely different kettle of fish, IMO. (Before anyone tells me I freaked out about Obama's speech to the kids, my thoughts at the time here. And I meant what I said in my comment: "For high school kids, and middle school kids who are bright and aware, I'd want them to hear it even if it was divisive. It's history being made, even if it is just a speech to children. Their own kids may ask them about the Obama presidency in 30 years." I'm frustrated by the fact that I was old enough during the Nixon fiasco to have known what was going on, but in my household and at my school this information was not offered to us or considered to be anything we ought to concern ourselves with. My daughter got a LOT more info about current events than I ever did.)
Y'know, I've been thinking of converting to Generic Theism ...
Imagine it - all those cut little tykes marching at recess (to fight obesity - a leading cause of expensive medical care later in life!) singing. And running obstacle courses to promote fitness! And what better way to get health than swimming! Oh, and to promote eye-to-hand coordination, riflery taught at safe ranges. (A HA! let us see the right challenge that!) Gee, they should probably wear helmets for safety too, like surplus military Kevlar. And to distinguish them from other groups they should wear a blue armband with the letter "O" on it, maybe the symbol used during the campaign. I tell you, the past may have been a mistake but as our youth with sing "..Tomorrow belongs to Me."!! The YOUTH are our future, won't you support them?
Well, perhaps you think those are the points that one should draw from this episode. Maybe, maybe not.
My comments thus far have not really been about the episode itself, so much as the very poor quality of your arguments about the episode. You said Houston Lawyer made a particular comparison; he plainly did not. When this was pointed out, you switched gears and insisted that the comparison that he did in fact make was inapt because the praise was in this case voluntary; it plainly was not.
I'm inclined to think that the story is first-page news, if the newspaper is a local one. Otherwise, the story perhaps is not. Of course, that doesn't mean it's not newsworthy at all, and it certainly does not mean that it's not an appropriate subject for blogging.
Whether the episode is representative of the nature of the support that Obama has received in general is debatable. I personally don't think that the average Obama voter is akin to these school officials, but even Obama supporters and Democratic voters have acknowledged that a subset of his supporters seem prone to hagiography. And the general media coverage of the man has been so fawning at times that it provoked one writer at Slate, hardly a right-wing news organ, to facetiously inaugurate a periodic feature called The Obama Messiah Watch.
So it does not strike me as unreasonable to think that this episode in New Jersey is representative of some of Obama's supporters. How many? Hard to say really.
But given the broader context -- the repeated portrayal of Obama as a transformative, messianic figure in some quarters -- this story does not strike me as being so isolated from the mainstream currents of American cultural and political life as to be irrelevant and abjectly unnewsworthy. Moreover, I do not think it is a coincidence that the sort of people who are outraged that this episode is the subject of any news coverage at all seem to share a certain politics.
Yeah, but I'm not arguing against what you seem to think I am, I'm arguing against the idea that Obama (and "leftists" in general) are setting out to indoctrinate the children of the United States.
My assertion is that if you're going to base that kind of allegation on one isolated event or even a couple of them (by whacked out school teachers--trust me, there are unfortunately plenty of those on both sides), you should also be intellectually honest enough to admit that similar events have occured during conservative administrations (as EV has done).
I agree with you that I would want my children to attend a speech made by the president, even if it's partisan, even if it were made by a conservative president. But there are a lot of people on here who say that Jesus song in New Jersey = wholesale indoctrination of America's youth. I'm just pointing out that a somewhat partisan speech made by a President, directly to school children is just as much evidence of full out indoctrination as Jesus song in New Jersey is. In my opinion, none of these instances are evidence of wholesale indoctrination. Both of the school songs (Obama and Bush) are inappropriate, but not the end of the world.
Perhaps the real lesson here is that I shouldn't bother to try and argue against the ideas shouted out by trolls on this blog.
Well, we disagree here, which is fine.
Well, first of all - speaking for myself only (can we have a new acronym, SFMO? Like IIRC and IANAL?) I don't think Obama is doing this. In fact, I'm pretty sure he's not. And we've had leftists in office before and I don't think we had this. I think it's a new phenomenon, it's a cult of personality thing that we haven't seen with prior presidents. I don't think it's widespread at all, or of real concern, but I don't like it.
Despite the fact that some people become overly-enamored with certain elected officials, I find it hard to believe that this all just a prelude to troops marching into our towns to take our rights away and send us off to Gulags. (And like I said before, for some reason I find it hard not to argue with the "interesting" people who do think that)
The use of the Jesus song shows (at least in my opinion) more of a lack of imagination then a elevation of Obama to diety status. I don't really know the song in question, but the lyrics I have seen don't seem to say he is Jesus they just seem to steal a line from a Jesus song and not even verbatim (once again, I could be wrong).
Lyrics:
Original:
Communism??? OMG, they were right all along! NOOOOO!!!!
I think you have a tin ear. Borrowing and reworking lyrics from an explicitly religious song in a way that effectively substitutes a politician for Jesus is not likely the sort of thing that happens by accident or through lack of imagination. Whoever penned this song undoubtedly was aware of the original. I suppose it is possible that author is just such a galactic nimrod that it never occurred to him how the substitution would be perceived by others. But the symbolism is so gobsmackingly obvious that it is hard to accept that degree of stupidity as an explanation.
Too bad we didn't get to see the initial drafts of that speech, before the sh*t hit the fan. I'd bet that the final version was quite a different than it started out.
Puhlease...
I think we both hear what we want to hear.
That's kinda what my suspicion is, actually.
This makes it seem like the writer took a Jesus song, and then did a find and replace to put in Obama's name. If you look at the lyrics I pasted above, there is no direct quote to "Jesus Loves the Little Children," at best the line in question is reminiscent of the song. In my opinion.
The song praising Obama aapparently was sung to the tune of the spiritual as well. If so, it's more than "reminiscent of the song."
Really, a quote by Reagan is now proof that supply side economics works?? Stop the presses!!!
Of course, one could do silly things like go past dogma to actually look at the data to understand the correlation between tax rates and revenue, but that would be problematic since it goes against Reagan voodoonomics.
Who said that?
I think you're irritated that Reagan didn't know he was supposed to answer that question the way a Democratic would have. Stupid Republican.
However, too many Obama supporters seem blissfully unaware of the 20th century history. As a result, we have incidences such as this school and the NEA scandal.
The way I learned it in Sunday School was "red or yellow, black or white . . . " Nowadays many sing it "red brown yellow black or white . . . "
I've been hanging around churches for 50 + years and have never heard "Black and yellow, red and white. . . "
Why don't the liberals lead w/ taking Robert Byrd's (former KKK member) name off of every building in West Virginia?
Best,
Ben
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