I Weep for the Future; Or, How I Think I Just Quit Facebook

I won't claim to be uninterested in politics. I won't even try to act like I'm apolitical. Ill informed on some topics, yes. But because of my job, my previous job, my ultimate job in the future, and just my natural interest in the subject matter, I do tend to keep up on matters related to education.

And if I see or hear one more person complain about Obama's welcome-back-to-school/take-ownership-of-your-own-educational-success speech that he will give on Tuesday, I think I might just flip my shit right on out.

And if as a parent you either too lazy, dumb, or uninterested to actually look into what the President's speech is going to cover, or read first-hand for yourself what these so-called socialist-leaning, Obama-deifying, cult-of-personality-laden accompanying lesson plans include, then you are not doing your job as a parent.

But what I am seeing left and right --- and even on Facebook, for God's sake --- are people ranting about this...and yet they rant based on what they heard on Fox News, or what they saw on some other half-truth website, or what their equally ignorant friend told them. Doesn't anyone actually go to the source for information anymore? When I first heard about this speech, I didn't go to CNN; I didn't go to Fox; I didn't go to Huffington Post....no, I actually went to http://www.whitehouse.gov/. Shocker! Who'd have thought one could actually read the lesson plans themselves, rather than hearing about their salacious, evil, turn-our-children-into-Commie-Pinkos-before-our-very-eyes content from some second-, third-, or fourth-hand source?

I keep wondering if these same people who are so outraged about Obama's speech and who are actually going to deny their children a day of school as a means of "protecting" them from this speech - do these same people feel that Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush were similarly fascist when they gave similar broadcasts during their presidencies? Did they compare Reagan and Bush to Kim Jung Il or Saddam Hussein? Unlikely.

And when people -- nay, parents -- are so quick to act on mis-/dis-information in relation to their children and want to wear that like some sort of badge on tv, in radio interviews, and on Facebook...I shudder to think about what ignorance they are actually espousing to their children about the matter. How about this? Even if you disagree, even if you hate Obama -- why not make this a "teachable moment" for kids? Talk about why Obama has the right to speak to school kids, or why (in your view) he should not, why everyone has the right in this country to speak their mind or give their opinion, and --- golly gee -- why kids might actually need to give some thought to taking some responsibility for ensuring their own educational success (the actual point to Obama's comments, after all). Rather than bury one's head in the sand and act like that addresses the problem - how about dealing with the problem in a way that might actually make a child think about these issues, their goverment, their education, and the role they play in all these things.