Of Propaganda and Indoctrination

It has been a difficult summer for President Obama. He has discovered that, while platitudinous slogans of hope and change, devoid of any concrete meaning, may get one elected, they are a poor basis for governing. Having first rammed through a stimulus package that, despite what the spin-meisters try to tell us, has obviously stimulated nothing but the national debt, the House of Representatives did the same thing with a late night passage of the President's cap and tax bill - representing the largest middle and lower class tax hike ever. Of course, it wasn't marketed as a tax hike, but as an essential step to battle global warming. It has not helped the President that this summer was the coolest summer in recent memory for much of the country. It appears that the bill is dead on arrival in the Senate.

Americans were already wary of the government following these debacles. Add onto this unprecedented government involvement in private enterprise within the banking system and auto industry, multiple international apology tours, the "beer summit", and the circus that was "Cash for Clunkers", and it is natural that Americans might balk when the President announced a planned take-over of 1/6 of our national economy - health care industry. For some reason, Americans didn't believe the President when he announced that we would dramatically expand the governmental health care rolls while increasing quality, decreasing cost, and without resorting to rationing. In fact, he told us, this would actually reduce the national debt.

At first, Democrats, prodded by President Obama, tried to rush health care reform through in much the same middle-of-the-night fashion as the Intergenerational Theft Stimulus Bill and the Cap and Tax bill. Democrats representing more conservative districts, having already spent their political capital on the aforementioned bills, however, started hearing from their constituents and applied the brakes. In spite of a great deal of arm-twisting from Democratic leadership and the President, the bill was not passed prior to the summer recess.

And what a summer recess it has been. Legislators holding constituent meetings have been confronted with skeptical and overtly hostile crowds, overwhelmingly opposed to governmental control of the health care system. Democratic leadership has been reduced to calling these citizens "angry mobs", "un-American", and "Right-wing domestic terrorists." Of course, the American public recognizes that these people have legitimate concerns and the effort of vilify them has turned the average American more and more against Congress and against the Obama administration. It is now obvious that in lieu of resorting to an obscure loophole in the House rules, any health care reform that may be passed will be a weak, watered-down version of the President's vision.

While the President is blaming Republicans for this, in actuality the Democrats could have passed this without Republican approval. This makes the President’s most worrisome opponents not the Republicans, but members of his own party.

Meanwhile, the President's approval ratings are tumbling faster than an over-caffienated Chinese gymnast. Independents who flocked to him in droves during the election are now deserting him in just as great numbers. Worst of all, there appear to be early cracks in the dyke of the sycophantic mainstream media. After a late Friday afternoon release of the CIA enhanced interrogation techniques, coinciding with Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement that, contrary to prior White House statements, he was going to investigate the CIA, the Washington Post (in a Saturday column, of course), went so far as to agree with former Vice President Dick Cheney that enhanced interrogation techniques worked. When the Washington Post stops carrying water for the Obama administration, can the remainder of the mainstream media be far behind?

Never fear, however, the President of the "most ethical administration in history" has another couple of tricks up his sleeve. In another blatantly illegal move (there seems to be the development of a theme here), the White House held a conference call with artists supported by the tax-payer funded National Endowment of the Arts last week to discuss how they could use there artistic talents to advance the President's agenda. Artists participating in the call were asked to select one of four areas of President Obama's agenda from health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, and community renewal (I know, that's five areas, but maybe since the White House is now dealing in numbers in the trillions, single digits are difficult for them) and to create art to "inspire" the public to support the President in these areas. The NEA was created by the Congress of the United States and President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 as “a public agency dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education.” Nowhere in the description of the NEA is political propaganda for the President. I guess Obama is so used to the liberal propaganda flowing from another taxpayer-funded organization, National Public Radio, that he figures he might as well enlist the artists in the cause, as well.

But the President isn't stopping there. When Ronald Reagan wasn't getting what he wanted out of Congress, he would go over Congress's heads and address the voters directly. President Obama is going one better and going over your heads to address your children. That's right, on Tuesday, Sept. 8, President Obama is going to give a speech to your children in the public schools. We don't know what this speech will consist of. The Department of Education states that it will be a "stay in school" message, which sounds pretty innocuous. What are more worrisome, though, are the lesson plans that were sent out by the Department of Education in anticipation of the speech. Some of the suggested exercises are for the students to "listen for inspirational quotes during the speech that you can hang on the walls of the classroom." Students are also asked to consider why it is important that we listen to the President and other elected officials. Of course, my favorite is to have students "write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals." I guess I wasn't aware that it was appropriate for the schools to encourage children to "help the President", especially when so many of us believe that the President is wrong on so many issues.

We don't know what, exactly, will be in the President's speech. Like so many other things coming out of the "most transparent administration in history", it is a closely guarded secret until delivered. I hope it is merely a "work hard and stay in school" speech, but this administration has a troubling tendency to believe that its 53% victory in November was an unconditional mandate to do whatever it desires and any question or criticism is invalid and in bad faith.

So if your children come home and encourage you to help them help the President, you know the indoctrination has begun.