dc_dux

Patience...Obama is gonna use the Census, round them up and herd them off to those secret FEMA detention camps!

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"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

pig

Holy Crapola. I have to go to Europe next week for work; I can't wait to hear the conversations that come up.



I really haven't been following this - way too busy with work for the past several months, so I didn't realize this was actually causing any kind of shit storm. Are we just emotionally fixated on being in crisis mode such that we are constantly looking for the next thing to be riled up over? As stated by others, there are some legitimate things to be concerned...highly concerned about right now. The President making a speech to kids at school, or not making a speech at school, is hardly one of them? I don't understand.

In my guess, if Obama came out and made a highly political speech to captive school children, we would have been crucified for it. As bad as this little tempest in a teapot x 100...so it's highly doubtful that he would do that. Or ever would have. I don't love the guy, and I disagree with many of his policy decisions, but I just don't understand this reaction. I think its time to start looking for real estate down near Tully's neck of the woods and just unplug from this crap. Enuff Z nuff.

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roachboy

i stand by my earlier take on this as driven by barely controlled paranoia.
folk who are trying to wrap it up in narratives that make it appear otherwise in the process simply repeat it's logic.

take a step back and look at it.

for example, i sometimes wonder about the relationship between the missing children collective panic and republican control. i keep forgetting to look into when the floating heads of missing children turned up on milk cartons, floating out of television to invade breakfast spaces as if this was a public service. it's seemed that the structuring of anxiety around the images of missing or damaged children has been among the characteristics of a kind of cultural seachange that took shape over the 1980s--optimism (in a vague way) about an alternate possible world coming out of the political movements of the late 60s & earl 70s channeled into optimism about th workings of the dominant order coupled with anxieties about something intimate, exceedingly so, being taken from you. the way conservative thinking has used the image of "the children" is pretty cynical.
we have been told that it is reasonable to be afraid that someone----unnamed, unknown, surfacing at random-----is going to steal what's nearest & dearest. the Malevolent Outsider.

it's been curious to watch this set-up repeat again and again in the american mediascape. the most obvious expression was the construction of the Terrorist. but it's repeated in the selling of security systems, in the fear of the Viral, in anxiety about identity theft. over and over the hard sell. like the old life insurance technique: buy this so you don't have to worry about your fiery demise. like the structuring feature of cold war ideology: at any moment you could be reduced to cinders by a nuclear device. i'm surprised there hasn't been a campaign to structure and profit by possibilties that a meteor can hit. maybe the only obstacle to that has been the slow development of anti-meteor devices.


and this paranoia seems to have had pretty wide-ranging effects, setting up an ambient climate of fear that otherwise incoherent political statements have presupposed, traficked in, worked on.

it happens that in this particularly absurd action, you see the dynamic itself repeated.

drape whatever you like around it, this is a sorry state of affairs, not only in itself (being persecuted by the president of the united states when he tells you that school is a good thing is among the most ridiculous things i've ever seen) but also for the associations that allow it to have traction.

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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

mixedmedia

hehe, thanks for that

What is really hitting me hard right now is the realization that for eight years folks like yourself and I have been told how craaazy paranoid we were for having issues with stuff like torture, wire-tapping and ambiguously-motivated wars, yet all of this somehow is completely normal. It must be weird, having lost on you how the worst fears of the most paranoid liberals are completely justified by the mainstreaming of this reactionary nonsense. Seems the lunatics are meant to run the asylum.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

dc_dux

Damn...now I'm gonna have this oldie but goodie in my mind all day:

"I got on my knees and begged you (Bush/Cheney et al) not to leave because I 'd go berserk."

YouTube - Napoleon XIV: 'They're coming to take me away'

YouTube - Napoleon XIV: 'They're coming to take me away'

An intelligent, informed and rational opposition to any president on serious policy issues only strengthens the system...but when that opposition focuses on birth certificates, census and internment camps or illegal aliens, death panels pulling the plug on grandma, and yes, innocuous yet inspirational speeches to kids....that opposition (not all of the TFP loyal opposition - but you know who you are) comes off as bat shit crazy and does a disservice, not only to their own cause, but to the nation.

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"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Derwood

Why not have ALL school later? I mean, if it's so important, right?

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

aceventura3

I simply listened to what my son had to say about the speech. I know what Obama's intent was, I think I help put it in perspective. It can be an overwhelming burden for children to believe that they carry the burden of the reputation of a school, teach, government, and parents rather than them simply doing the best they can in school.

For the most part he felt the speech was good and did not understand what all the fuss was about.

---------- Post added at 06:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:31 PM ----------

but first I want him to enjoy being 12, there will be plenty of time for him to tackle major world problems as an adult. again, I don't have a problem with the speech, and it gave us an opportunity to talk about what it means to be a good student and a productive citizen.

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"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

pan6467

I am afraid of kids being used as pawns. They are used as pawns in advertising, in religion and to use them to in a poltical arena is going way too far.

What happened to letting kids be kids?

We complain about how fast they grow up, then give them idols like Hannah Montana and advertising like Penney's latest.

I'm not a prude nor am I some moralist, but I believe kids, especially in these trying times need to be able to enjoy their youth and not have to grow up and face adult BS when they are in 4th grade. It's pathetic that some in our country, including the President, believe it is ok and natural to politicize the kids, to have a president lie to them telling them he was where they are.... it's bs and it's a political agenda to be ashamed of because it shows me he has no merit to what he wants. Win the kids over with bs and get them to hound mom and dad into accepting the political agenda.

I'm not proud of what my country has become in the last 20+ years. Poor leadership with no direction, partisanship that is divisive and all about power not bettering the future, politicians that are corrupt and bought and paid for by their parties and lobbyists.

All the while our infrastructure has been falling apart, our economy continues to go into the dumper, WE HAVE OUR GOVERNMENT SPENDING MONEY WE DON'T HAVE BAILING OUT BANKS THAT CONTINUE TO FORECLOSE AND RAISE THEIR FEES, we are in a war that our leaders and media seem to downplay and treat like page 13 news.... IT'S A GODDAMNED WAR, PEOPLE ARE DYING, IT SHOULD BE FRONT PAGE AND WE SHOULD BE TOLD WHY WE ARE THERE, WHAT WE ARE THERE FOR AND WHAT WE ARE DOING TO END IT.... THE MILITARY PEOPLE OVER THERE DESERVE THIS.

Instead, we have a president addressing kids telling them bs lies about how he grew up and faced the same problems.... yeah, in Indonesia wasn't it and private schools?

We focus on a health care plan that no one not even the vast majority of congress have even read or understand.

When does it end? And now you are all gung ho to bring the kids into it all? THEY ARE FUCKING KIDS, LET THEM BE KIDS FOR GOD'S SAKE.

What was Obama afraid of to have the speech later in the day so parents could watch with their kids and answer their questions and not teachers?

I thought there was a push to have parents parent and not government or the schools. Guess I was wrong... guess teachers, Obama and the government know better what to say and how to raise the kids.

FUCK IT, GIVE THE PEOPLE AMERICAN IDOL, THE LATEST TMZ AND WHO THE FUCK CARES WHAT FREEDOMS WE LOSE.... JUST GET THE PHARMS TO MAKE MORE ANTI-DEPRESSANTS AND KEEP US DRUGGED.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

mixedmedia

y'ok then...

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Tully Mars

A sitting US President tells schools kids they should stay in school and be responsible... and there are bad sides to this?

Threads like this make me glad I moved out of the US. Some days I wish I could figure out a way to stop paying US taxes.

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Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

Halx

You all are hilarious. The kids are going to be fine. A message from the president is not going to fuck them up or turn them into activists. If anything, they'll enjoy the break from class. I know I would.

Now that its all said and done, and we see that the speech was positive and apolitical, don't you feel foolish for ever getting worked up?

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pig

Now we're cooking with gas bitches

/sort of miss ustwo

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Paq

where is ustwo

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Live.

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filtherton

Probably elbow deep in some poor kid's mouth.

tzddwl

Drop by and have a look///

good wishes to everybody here...