What's Wrong With This Country?

I had many honest discussions with PunditGirl during the 2008 Presidential election about why her dad and I are Democrats, why we believed that the Bush administration was bad for our country and why we wanted a Democrat in the White House.

But I also made sure that my then-eight-year-old understood that even though I felt VERY strongly about why the GOP was so wrong in its current philosophies, that it's also important to respect the President and the presidency. The leader of our country, regardless of what we think about his (and hopefully someday 'her') positions, inherently deserves a certain amount of respect. It's crucial that our children understand that, in this time of shouting head programs where news personalities bash anyone and everyone, the leader of our country is inherently someone they should pay attention to and respect.

But after what I learned this week, I have to wonder whether I'm being a tad naive.

Right-wingers are calling for their own to keep their children home from school on September 8, when President Obama is scheduled to speak to children across the country. They're afraid that the mean, old President is going to do or say something to our children that would lead them down the path to becoming a nefarious liberal! (As an aside, I find it pretty amusing that one of those crying the loudest for this school day boycott doesn't have to worry about her kids hearing the speech. I'll let you draw your own conclusions from that.)

Has the right wing really become that paranoid? I guess they have. Somehow, they've turned an innocuous speech by the President into an evil effort to brainwash and indoctrinate our children that *GASP* they should stay in school and work hard!!!

Cover your ears and run for the hills!!

It's all very silly, actually, but I wonder if these calls for truancy mean that right-wingers believe we should teach our kids to disrespect the President AND the education system by going to the zoo instead of school next week? Can anyone TRULY think that a Presidential address to schoolchildren is about trying to indoctrinate them with subliminal liberal messages? 'Cause if you do, I've got this great bridge in Brooklyn I have to sell you.

As for the hate thing, it's time to back off on that a bit. Trying to gin up so much hate and faux propaganda must be really tiring for those who have taken that on as a political profession.

What this really amounts to is the uber-conservatives continuing the Fox News drumbeat of finding any way to take Barack Obama's words and actions out of context in order to demonize him every moment of every day between now and the 2012 election. It's nothing more and nothing less.

I knew this sort of thing would happen during Obama's administration, but I didn't think that each and every move he makes would be turned upside down by the extreme right and twisted until it made me want to move to another country. I still had a certain amount of faith that people would prove that they wanted what was best for everyone in the country, not just an extreme political agenda.

I won't make that mistake again.

Joanne Bamberger is the founder of the political blog, PunditMom. Joanne is a Contributing Editor for News & Politics at BlogHer and is at work on a book about the increasing political involvement of mothers, Mothers of Intention (Bright Sky Press, Fall 2010).

Follow Joanne Bamberger on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PunditMom

Comments

[ghenry]

Yes, right-wingers, let your children stay at home and listen to Rush Limbaugh instead!!!

[Mort Scharfman]

The word for what's wrong with this country is, unutterable,by us. The word is decadence. It has been upon us and growing since the 60's, evidenced by the three historical signs of it: preoccupation with violence in sports and entertainment, food and sex, loss of creative energy. Rome did it best and died of its own overindugence in sensualism, becoming hooked on a steady diet of what was called "bread and circuses" It was fliterally so, by dint of its Emporers seducing mass support by keeping their libidos drunk on heady orgiastic pleasures.

The paralells are unmistakable, from " R rated for violence" films, to TV's "Dance Your Ass Off", music vids parading "hos 'n bitches' shaking them off, to secualr godesses like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, gangsta rap and hip-hop lyrics, the Oscar winning title song "It's Tough to be a Pimp, From widespread drugging and drinking and eating disorders.and corporate and political corruption infractions setting examples for the young, right down to the deep decline of productivity.

No former empire, however glorious, survived it,. The few Emporers that tried to resurrect Rome, met with futility and no amount of moral diatribes and speeches could fight it. The public was already too happy and wasted to give a damn.

[socialtalker]

your silly comments show you know nothing of the roman empire, rome was extremely decadent B-E-F-O-R-E the height of its power. empires, like anything else have a natural course of life, they rise, they crest, then they fall.

[Neal Jansons]

Political offices don't "inherently" deserve respect any more than any other human being. This whole attitude is a holdover from feudalism and divine right to rule. In a democracy public servants are just people doing a job we pay for. If anything, politicians should be treating us with "inherent" respect.

You might think that somehow you are raising your child to be a good citizen or some such, but what you are really doing is instilling the notion that authority is due respect simply because it is authority. In a system of divine right to rule, at least there would be a theory that would say that, due to the accident of birth, some people really were "better" and deserved "more" than others, but in a modern democracy, politicians are just people, generally some of the worst panderers and loathsome manipulators in society. There is no "inherent respect" due them or their offices.

Either everyone is due equal "inherent" respect or no one is.

[pm247]

Obama wants to be loved by all but that's not going to happen. Reaching out to the right is only costing him the support of his base. He is governing like a moderate Republican, but Republicans will still do everything in their power to tear him down. The same thing happened to Clinton even without the race factor.

Democrats have to stop being such patsies. It's embarrassing.

[Dolmance]

Because Republicans are like conservatives in every society since ancient Greece, through Rome and all the way through to today - they love power more than they love their country. They're traditionally the ones who join forces with any occupying force during war, they're the first to surrender in war when their bottom lines are threatened, and they are always more than willing to burn the whole house down if they don't get their way. That's why the South was against Washington during the Revolution.

Conservatives live in every country on earth. And they're the ones who are always making either their minorities or their neighbors miserable - whether they live in India, in the Arab World, in Africa or here in the US.

Imagine a world where they didn't exist? It'd be like Heaven on earth.

[markysgirl5]

I guess it all comes down to how you view change. Conservatives almost always view it as bad whereas liberals look at it as a positive thing overall. Of course change can be both good and bad. Conservatives tend to want to avoid any bad consequences of change and therefore resist it as much as possible. Liberals, on the other hand, accept change as inevitable and view fighting it as futile. Therefore for liberals best strategy is to try to work to shape change to achieve the best possible outcome given the circumstances. Conservatives often look at that viewpoint as naive or too wish-washy. The folks screaming loudest about the President's upcoming address to school children are fearful that his message of hope for positive change will resonate with the country's children. They also fear that as children are exposed to new ideas and learn to think carefully and critically through education, they will, in fact, become (gasp!) more liberal. Perhaps this is a valid concern.

[GianRico]

Joanne....you are not being naive to have expectations of civil discourse and respect for the President of the U.S. The beauty of being in America is the freedom of speech we enjoy to say what we please.Don't even think of going elsewhere and give a hint of empowerment to those who wrap their vitriolic discourse in the flag and patriotism. Do not become cynical because the RW neocon lunatics have taken the rhetoric to the most extreme hatefilled language. Their stand of encouraging truancy is anlogous to denying their children the privilege of a driver's license because of the amount of automobile fatalities. They don't understand that the purpose of education is knowledge acquired by exposure to a diversity of ideas. So that with parental guidance, the children will educate themselves. Their policy of exclusion will undeniably spur their children's curiosity(beyond computer games..OH NO!) to want to find out why. Especially as they engage with their peers throughout the school year. To paraprase Ben Franklin that ignorance is only a shame when one is unwilling to learn. "Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is CRIMINAL" Samuel Johnson