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Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Pledges-Old and New


Lenin



Stalin



Kim Il Sung



Obama (in Berlin)



"Ich schwöre: Ich werde dem Führer des Deutschen Reiches und Volkes Adolf Hitler treu und gehorsam sein, die Gesetze beachten, und meine Amtspflichten gewissenhaft erfüllen, so wahr mir Gott helfe." -Pledge taken by German civil servants during Third Reich

Translation: (I swear: I will be faithful and obedient to Adolf Hitler, Führer of the German Reich and people, to observe the law, and to conscientiously fulfil my official duties, so help me God.)

"I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America.
And to the republic for which it stands
Under God
With liberty and justice for all."

"I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama."

Next Tuesday, public school children all over the country will spend an hour being indoctrinated by a lesson plan designed by the Department of Education. (It has been described as "not mandatory, but suggested"). Kids in grades K-6 will see a back to school address by President Obama. In addition, DOE Secretary Arne Duncan has sent out a letter to schools suggesting that teachers might encourage kids to write an essay on "how I can help the President". Also, the Government has already released a short film for schools showing celebrities making "pledges" to follow this or that liberal agenda. Among the pledges is a pledge "to be of service to Barack Obama". The film follows below:


Good grief!

Is this what we pay our tax dollars to support a massive and ineffective bureaucracy called the Department of Education? Is this not gross politicization? And worse yet, what is the Department of Education doing trying to indoctrinate school kids into some form of hero worship of our "Great Leader"?

Every week that passes, there are more and more signs that our freedoms are slipping away.

17 comments:

Lance Christian Johnson said...

Yeah, that video is pretty much the same thing as Lenin, Stalin, etcetera.

Look - it's cheesy, and it's filled with self-serving celebrities who are trying to make themselves look magnanimous and important. But come on! Our freedoms are slipping away? I'm so tired of this. What can you not do today that you could do yesterday? Man, and this is from the same person who'd defend wiretapping and TORTURE. Yeah...who's like Stalin again?

I give this a Fousesquawk Fear Factor of 8. (On a scale of 10)

Gary Fouse said...

The problem with you Lance, is that you respond to each posting one by one instead of adding up the points. Start with jeremiah Wright, Wm Ayres, Saul Alinsky, then go to the grandoise speeches of Berlin and Denver, then go to the takeover of Chrysler, GM, health care, then throw in Van Jones, Mark Lloyd, Harold Koh, consider the Fairness Doctrine, now this latest.

When does it start to add up for you, Lance?

Keep that scorecard going. You'll eventually get it.

Lance Christian Johnson said...

Gary,

Have you ever looked into the actual arguments of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists? They have a string of "points" that they connect together, and if you pay attention to all of that - but completely ignore everything else - it all fits together rather well and has its own internal consistency. It's downright convincing even, if you're already inclined to believe them, that is.

I don't take them seriously either.

I'll reiterate my main point though - until you can name an actual freedom that has been taken away from us, your statement about how our freedoms are "slipping away" is completely groundless.

I think you may have completely crossed that line between satire and reality though. I'm tempted to just copy and paste your posts to my blog and see if people take it for satire. It's really getting difficult to tell, and I'm having my suspicions that you're actually a major pinko liberal who's having a goof on unsuspecting readers. If that's the case - bravo.

Findalis said...

That video is sickening.

I wonder how many parents will be keeping the children home Sept 8? If enough do, it will send a powerful message.

Sept 8 would be a good day to take the kids to the zoo. When we go, we make sure to visit the monkey house, its nice to visit my in-laws.

Ingrid said...

Gary, only one of those people pledged to serve Obama. Those people's opinions are of no consequence to me.
I am not afraid of losing any freedom because of Obama, but because of the stupidity of people who give up their given rights by not voting, by not educating their children, by not teaching common sense and morals. People are basically disinterested and allow the country to go to hell. This is the main problem.
After eight years of the worst administration we had, you blame everything that is wrong now on the new President. Who the hell cares about Wright, Ayers etc. They belong in the past, lets move forward.

Gary Fouse said...

Ingrid,

The problem is we are moving forward, "progressing" forward if you will.

Gary Fouse said...

Lance,

We are in the process of losing our freedom to vote secretly on union representation (card check legislation that Congress wants to pass), then there is the Fairness Doctrine, which is in the works and the big one-health care.

Oh, have you heard, the Govt owns Chrysler and GM? Yhey even fired the ceo of gm.

These things may not be all done deals yet, but after only 7 months, they are in the works.

Not to say anything about what the Admin and Congress call those of us who dissent-racists, astroturf, un-American, thugs. etc.

Lance Christian Johnson said...

Not to say anything about what the Admin and Congress call those of us who dissent-racists, astroturf, un-American, thugs. etc.

The irony is staggering.

Gary Fouse said...

So let me see if I understand you, Lance. If your kids go to school Tuesday and after viewing Obama's speech, have to write an essay on how they "can help president Obama", you're OK with that?

Lance Christian Johnson said...

So let me see if I understand you, Lance. If your kids go to school Tuesday and after viewing Obama's speech, have to write an essay on how they "can help president Obama", you're OK with that?

I missed this, but it deserves a response:

I don't see how viewing the speech and writing the essay are automatically linked. You can just show the speech. Personally, if I showed it, I'd rather they just write down their own personal reactions rather than give them such a leading topic. Still, if the message of the whole speech is "stay in school" then I don't see anything sinister about that being the topic.

And again, if Bush was giving the speech, I'd feel the same exact way.

Lance Christian Johnson said...

I just found this, and I thought you might be interested:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/

It's Obama's speech. I'd like to know exactly what he's saying in it that's so horrible. As for the "help Obama" part, I think that it was referring to this:

"So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?"

I can't see how anybody would have a problem with this.

Gary Fouse said...

Lance,

Obviously, with all the criticism, the thing has been watered down. The fact remains that DOE sent out a "suggested"lesson plan to the schools including having the students wrire a paper on "how they could help President Obama". They have now pulled it back and admitted it was badly written.

What caused the White House and DOE to change everything? The response from conservatives, Fox News and conservative talk radio and blogs. We did what the mainstream news media should have done at the outset.

Lance Christian Johnson said...

Of course, you can say this because you've read the original speech.

Give me a break.

Gary Fouse said...

What I said had nothing to do with the "original speech", which I have not read. It was based on the original suggested lesson plan and the suggested essay I quoted. It was also based on that dopey Pledge film clip.

In this country, we pledge allegiance to our flag and country-not to any particular president. When we mix those things up, we lay the ground for a dictator. I'm not saying Obama is trying to become a dictator, but he sure has done everything to portray himself as "The Great Man/Leader"-which he clearly is not. Or did you miss the "People of the World" speech he gave as a CANDIDATE in Berlin and his Mile High Stadium acceptance speech? Can you say "megalomaniac"?

Gary Fouse said...

lance:

PS-

"I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama."

You give ME a break.

Lance Christian Johnson said...

"I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama."

That's from the video, right? Where was it ever a part of the lesson plan that kids had to make this pledge?

Ingrid said...

I pledge that I am going to dust my furniture now using "Pledge".

Anthony Kiedis was the only one to plege to support Obama.

How paranoid can people get, Gary?