{"id":465,"date":"2009-09-04T06:35:50","date_gmt":"2009-09-04T06:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/obamaphobia-the-president-is-i.html"},"modified":"2009-09-04T06:35:50","modified_gmt":"2009-09-04T06:35:50","slug":"obamaphobia-the-president-is-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/obamaphobia-the-president-is-i.html","title":{"rendered":"Obamaphobia: The President is indoctrinating our schoolchildren!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>UPDATE<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/transcript-and-word-cloud-pres.html\">transcript of President Obama&#8217;s prepared remarks<\/a> now available.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><object xmlns=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"332\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.dailykostv.com\/flv\/player.swf\"\/><param name=\"wmode\"\/><embed xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/xhtml\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dailykostv.com\/flv\/player.swf\" height=\"332\" width=\"400\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" flashvars=\"config=http:\/\/www.dailykostv.com\/w\/002099\/vxml.php?400\"\/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>This video is from 1992, right before the election. That wasn&#8217;t President Bush Sr.&#8217;s only address to schoolchildren, either &#8211; a few years earlier, he also made <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1989\/09\/13\/us\/bush-urges-youngsters-to-help-friends-on-drugs.html\">a 15-minute appeal to kids<\/a> that saying no to drugs &#8220;won&#8217;t make you a nerd.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Calling Obama&#8217;s plan for a televised address to schoolchildren &#8220;an indoctrination into socialism&#8221; is akin to labeling the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykostv.com\/w\/002099\/\">video<\/a> up above of Bush Sr &#8220;an indoctrination into fascism&#8221;. Since the speech is entirely voluntary on the part of each school, there&#8217;s no coercive element to this whatsoever.<\/p>\n<p>Those ODS-afflicted parents who insist on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/storyonly\/2009\/9\/2\/775398\/-Heres-why-the-oligarhy-crowd-cant-spell\">keeping their kids home from school<\/a> that day are welcome to do so. Their kids will miss out on a day&#8217;s education, be taught to perpetuate the atmosphere of political hatred, and view the Office of the Presidency with disrespect. That is perfectly within their right &#8211; but let&#8217;s not mince words, it is they who are indoctrinating their children, not Obama.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps ODS is an insufficient term here. I think <em>Obamaphobia<\/em> might be more apt.<\/p>\n<p>Incidentally, Team Obama has a sense of humor, acknowledging that kids might not be that interested in what a dumb ol&#8217; boring politician has to say, so they recruited someone rather more interesting people to help him out:<\/p>\n<p><object xmlns=\"\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/QEeY59ofvks&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1\"\/><param name=\"wmode\"\/><embed xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/xhtml\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/QEeY59ofvks&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\"\/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>Related: good coverage of the Obama school controversy from <a href=\"http:\/\/features.csmonitor.com\/politics\/2009\/09\/03\/obama-school-speech-suddenly-a-prickly-topic-for-educators\/\">The Christian Science Monitor<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/stories\/0909\/26711.html\">Politico<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tampabay.com\/opinion\/editorials\/article1033591.ece\">an editorial<\/a> in the St Petersburg Times, brilliantly titled &#8220;Danger! Obama talks&#8221; which notes, &#8220;this is not a partisan issue. This is about civic engagement and respect for the presidency.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UPDATE: transcript of President Obama&#8217;s prepared remarks now available. This video is from 1992, right before the election. That wasn&#8217;t President Bush Sr.&#8217;s only address to schoolchildren, either &#8211; a few years earlier, he also made a 15-minute appeal to kids that saying no to drugs &#8220;won&#8217;t make you a nerd.&#8221; Calling Obama&#8217;s plan for&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[25,111,327,26,32],"class_list":["post-465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-republican-fitna","tag-news","tag-obama-derangement-syndrome","tag-obamaphobia","tag-politics","tag-republicans"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Obamaphobia: The President is indoctrinating our schoolchildren! - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obamaphobia: The President is indoctrinating our schoolchildren! - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"UPDATE: transcript of President Obama&#8217;s prepared remarks now available. This video is from 1992, right before the election. That wasn&#8217;t President Bush Sr.&#8217;s only address to schoolchildren, either &#8211; a few years earlier, he also made a 15-minute appeal to kids that saying no to drugs &#8220;won&#8217;t make you a nerd.&#8221; Calling Obama&#8217;s plan for&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/obamaphobia-the-president-is-i.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-09-04T06:35:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Obamaphobia: The President is indoctrinating our schoolchildren! - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Obamaphobia: The President is indoctrinating our schoolchildren! - City of Brass","og_description":"UPDATE: transcript of President Obama&#8217;s prepared remarks now available. This video is from 1992, right before the election. That wasn&#8217;t President Bush Sr.&#8217;s only address to schoolchildren, either &#8211; a few years earlier, he also made a 15-minute appeal to kids that saying no to drugs &#8220;won&#8217;t make you a nerd.&#8221; Calling Obama&#8217;s plan for&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/obamaphobia-the-president-is-i.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2009-09-04T06:35:50+00:00","author":"Aziz Poonawalla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/obamaphobia-the-president-is-i.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/obamaphobia-the-president-is-i.html","name":"Obamaphobia: The President is indoctrinating our schoolchildren! - City of Brass","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-09-04T06:35:50+00:00","dateModified":"2009-09-04T06:35:50+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/obamaphobia-the-president-is-i.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/obamaphobia-the-president-is-i.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/obamaphobia-the-president-is-i.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Obamaphobia: The President is indoctrinating our schoolchildren!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/","name":"City of Brass","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}