There’s one thing that’s obvious about the present political climate and debate in this country. President Obama is a good and honorable man. He’s genuine, he wants to do what’s best (even though I’m sick of the “reaching across the isle), and he’s facing an incredible challenge. Not only does he have to overcome all the foopahs of George W Bush/Dick Cheney, but he’s got to deal with what’s left of the Republican party which, it seems to me from listening to them, still haven’t acknowledged how bad they messed up this nation. I’m still looking for that surge of energy from Obama where he says “enough already” from the ridiculous crap that’s flying his way from every direction. The absurdity of some of what’s coming out of the mouths of Republicans makes me wonder how could stuff like that ever make it to the public airwaves, and how could people like that get enough support to be a national party?

I can tell you (I’ve been saying this since well before Obama was elected – my own daughter disagreed with me) that the true racist nature of TOO MANY AMERICANS is bubbling over. Many of them either are so ill-informed as to what’s really happening “out there” or, unfortunately there’s no other excuse I can come up with except we have a LOT of people in this country who can’t accept a black person as President. Today, in my school, they showed the speech Obama gave on Tuesday because we hadn’t started classes yet when he originally made it. The students overwhelmingly wanted to see the speech and, after listening to the entire thing, I thought it was an excellent speech and President Obama confirmed the message I’ve been trying to get across to my students for almost 20 years. Our school is the small town version of the inner city school, there’s lots of diversity, and these students need to have role models they can identify with. THEY IDENTIFY WITH OBAMA!

Here’s what I found interesting – which leads me to believe some of these right wing “talkers” are having a huge impact on our nation, despite the fact most of what they say is easily refuted – our students had to take a permission slip home IN ORDER FOR US TO SHOW THE VIDEO! That’s for them to hear the President of the United States! Think about that. Do you really think students had to take a permission slip home before Ronald Reagan spoke to students? OF COURSE NOT! Did they have to take a permission slip home before they could listen to President Bush? You guessed right, OF COURSE NOT, AGAIN! Now, these permission slips were written in a way that they didn’t have to bring them back unless their parents didn’t want them to watch the speech – I give my Principal credit for doing it that way – I’m sure it was our district that mandated the permission slips. But, I found it incredible that a student in America would have to have permission from their parents to listen to the President give them a motivational speech. WHAT IS WRONG WITH US?!!!!

Here’s the other thing I found really unusual, and to be honest, a bit disturbing. There were teachers in our building who didn’t allow their students a chance to see the speech. We’re talking about the second day of the school year, you’re trying to get to know the students, trying to motivate them to have a great year, and the speech only lasted something like 16 minutes. In fact, when I saw the entire speech (I had heard exerpts of it beforehand) I was just as impressed with the high school senior, who was the President of his high school class, who gave the introduction – as were my sixth grade students. Now, I asked my students if they wanted to see the speech and all raised their hands. One girl had brought back the slip signed by her Mom which “opted” her out, but when she heard that – she told me her Mom misunderstood and thought the slip was to give her permission – she wanted to see and hear the speech. I allowed students to draw or read (again, these are sixth graders) if they chose, I just asked them to honor those who actually wanted to watch. The students were great and the speech led to an excellent discussion about the importance of staying in school. WHAT KIND OF PRECEDENT ARE WE SETTING WHEN STUDENTS AREN’T ALLOWED TO LISTEN TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE NATION ENCOURAGE THEM TO STAY IN SCHOOL AND “DO THEIR BEST?”

Some of the complaints I heard from adults about this speech were so absurd that I stuggle to understand how our media can even give them credibility by publishing them. I guess, when the governor of a state (Minnesota) makes a big deal out of it and urges parents to leave their students at home, it shows that we have a huge problem in this nation, and the media will publish that. I heard a Congressman (I can’t remember his name) claiming that President Obama was going to give a socialist indoctrination to the students! During the discussion that I heard while I was driving to and from work (listening to various talk radio shows) I heard Obama called a socialist, a communist, a fascist (these people obviously don’t understand the terms they’re using), and today I even heard one guy go off on every Democrat – even calling President Carter a fascist. Now, if the guy really understood the definition of “fascist” he’d understand that the closest thing to a fascist we have in this country is Dick Cheney. I’ve written about this before, but here’s the definition of fascist: Fascists advocate the creation of a single-party state. Fascist governments forbid and suppress criticism and opposition to the government and the fascist movement. Fascism opposes class conflict, blames capitalist liberal democracies for its creation and communists for exploiting the concept.

So, as usual, the people calling President Obama a fascist and, incredibly Jimmy Carter as well, are much closer to the term themselves. Here’s one other thing as long as I’m on definitions; here’s the definition of sedition: incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority. Google sedition and you can get a good look at the long history of sedition “acts” in our history, beginning with the founding fathers that people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh would have you think they are in “tune” with. It’s people like these that make me feel uneasy in criticizing President Obama because he gets a constant barrage from them, but you’ve heard the old saying, “you have to do what you have to do.” I spent years “putting up” with Republican Presidents who I vehemently disagreed with. It’s been difficult for me to watch, almost my entire adult lifetime, the voters voting in politicians who have been running up massive debts, and funneling the great wealth of this nation to the very people who don’t need it. They proved to me that they don’t hate welfare, it’s just that it has to be corporate welfare for them to go along with it. I never tried to incite anyone, and I would never have supported anyone who did, despite the fact that I REALLY DIDN’T CARE FOR PRESIDENT GW BUSH! In fact, he is the one who motivated me to use this site as a way to vent my frustrations.

But the Limbaughs, the Hannity’s, the O’Reilly’s, the Beck’s, the Boehner’s, the McConnell’s, the Palin’s, and just recently I heard maybe the worst of them all as far as I’m concerned – and believe me it’s hard to be worst than Limbaugh or Beck – but the guy named Michael Savage – I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a person with a more fitting last name. These people are committing sedition DAILY! And, this gets me back to one of the things that I’m concerned about with President Obama. I’ve written many times that President Bush and Vice President Cheney and everyone else in their administration who violated federal laws should be AT LEAST under investigation. AT THE MINIMUM “We the People” should have an idea of EVERYTHING THEY DID IN OUR NAME! That, in itself, might help to shut these right wing talkers up, because I know a lot of good people who are Republicans and they just don’t believe “their” President could have committed a bunch of crimes. They have no idea of the torture and what it entailed. They don’t understand the ramifications of the federal government eavesdropping on its citizens without a warrant. And, many of them still don’t “get” how much they were lied to regarding Iraq and Afganistan. And many of these good people assume people who are on the airwaves are telling the truth. Obviously, the fact Bush/Cheney weren’t investigated for torture makes these talkers feel pretty safe in committing sedition on a daily basis.

The rest of the world is beginning to see us as a third world country. Our students are less educated (thanks in part to “no child left behind”), our public is poorly informed, our economy is virtually bankrupt, and the “world” understands fully that we are torturers. And, we’ll continue to be torturers in their eyes if Obama gets away with “looking forward” which I’ve complained about endlessly. Yet, these right wing talkers continue the propoganda machine that’s been filling the American public with lies for over 25 years. More and more Americans are starting to understand that it’s the Republican party that is the “authoritarian” group (I’ll let you figure out what word fits there) despite their accusations against anyone who considers themselves a liberal, progressive, or Democrat. They have been robbing this country blind since the day that Ronald Reagan introduced the “trickle down” theory of government. It’s so absurd on it’s face that I’ve always been amazed that so many people “bought” into it. Lower taxes sounds great, but the vast majority of working class people who supported Reagan never seemed to figure out that, while they might have on occassion got a couple dollars back, it was the rich in this nation who’ve been “laughing all the way to the bank” ever since 1980! It really is obscene when less than 1% of the population controls 20%, at least, of the nations wealth and the amount has more than doubled since Reagan took office. Many people have been consistently voting against their own self interest!

The thought of losing control of that disparity has these Republicans in an uproar, and the way they’re going about it shows how important all that money is to them. They have been lying to the American public for so long that I think they actually believe their own lies are the truth. Last night when Obama was giving a speech before both houses of Congress a Representative from South Carolina blurted out “You lie” so that everyone in the hall and everyone watching on TV could hear him. He later apologized, but when I listened to him do it, he said he apologized because he was told to do so by the Republican leadership – not because he was actually sorry he said it. The incredible thing is that he was still claiming that Obama was lying and when you look at the bill in question, IT SAYS EXACTLY WHAT OBAMA CLAIMED – that the health care bill is not going to give benefits to illegal aliens (which is a discussion for another day). This is all unbelievable to me – I’ve heard everything from “kill him” to “he’s a terrorist” when these Republican leaders are talking about our duly elected President (remember, the last Republican President was appointed by the Supreme Court). I would love to see Obama go on the attack against them, but maybe he is right to let them self-destruct. If enough Americans heard the Congressman yell out last night in the middle of Obama’s speech (which was a very good speech, by the way – another thing they hate), maybe we’ll see more people jump off the Republican bandwagon.

But, getting back to my initial point – when we’ve gotten to the point where we are making students get permission from their parents before they can listen to our President, I BELIEVE WE’VE GONE TOO FAR! My instincts are that we are at war, internally, and I’m frustrated by Obama’s even keel approach – but the reality is that he’s not getting sucked into the “MUD.” He continues to take the “high road” and I REALLY HOPE HE SUCCEEDS. And, maybe he’s also right that it’s up to us, the people, to actually make it clear to the Congress what we want. I will have to study the health care proposal that Obama made and if I determine that it’s a boon to insurance companies I will probably be disappointed and not be able to support it. However, I listened the other day to a brilliant Congressman from South Carolina (not the guy who blurted out) named James Cliburn and he talked about the difference between “the perfect and the good.” He was being very pragmatic, and maybe that is the way to go, but as long as we keep putting up with this seditious Republican rhetoric, I believe our nation will continue to decline and getting something as basic as health care for all Americans will be (and has been) almost impossible. It is up to “we the people” to put a stop to it, and I’m thinking the best way is a massive boycott of the sponsors of Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly, Savage, and the others!