Red Room Where the Writers Are

As the furor goes on over Obama talking to kids in school, we return from Labor Day weekend and say good-bye to another summer (unofficially, of course). A lot has happened over the last week or so, the school speech not being the least significant among them. So what's the big deal?

Well, a bunch of Republicans are getting their panties in a bunch over the President speaking to school kids, saying he's going to indoctrinate them into his way of thinking, right? Well, kind of, but not completely (FYI - before any liberals go preaching from their soapbox about the extreme right-wing nut jobs, hop in your DeLorean and take a ride back to 1991 when the Democrat Majority in Congress held an investigation into George H.W. Bush's speech to schoolchildren which was just as benign as the released version of Obama's speech).

If you look at the speech that's been released to the public, as well as the suggested classwork, it all appears pretty benign - no politics, just encouragement to stay in school. If that's what it had been in the beginning, none of the uproar might have occurred. The problem was that the classwork originally included suggestions for writing which included writing a letter to themselves on how they could help the President. The idea that this President was even attempting to get children thinking about how they could help him advance his political agenda outraged many people, but it also, in many people's view, pointed out a fundamental flaw in Obama's grasp of his role in America: that he's here to be served, not to serve.

Is this overblown? Probably to some extent. The speech and curriculum as released now, are tame and have no political overtones. Had that been the case of the first attempt, this could have been avoided. In fact, the speech wasn't even available before, so nobody knew WHAT the President would be saying and, therefore, assumed the worst. This points to another fundamental issue in America today: a vast number of people DO NOT TRUST our President. Given the opportunity to speak to our impressionable young children, many people believe he would try to indoctrinate him into his way of thinking (don't worry folks, they get plenty of liberal indoctrination as school goes on - an hour long speech isn't going to be the straw that broke the camel's back).

On top of all this, yet one more fundamental problem with our country surfaced: lazy parenting. If you, as a parent, believe that your child will sit through the speech of a President and be lost to you and your ideology, well, that's sad. Sure the President is a big, important figure, but you are your child's parent. You SHOULD be larger than life in their eyes. You should have plenty of time and opportunity, should the President make any political statements, to sit down with your child and discuss those statements - show your children what your beliefs are and why. I expect I'll be doing this often as the "Green" initiative is pushed in our schools. I'll spend countless hours explaining to my children why things like conservation, recycling, and alternative fuels are good, but how much of it is politicized and how I am not sold on the concept of man-made Global Warming.

Which, by the way, leads to something else that recently occurred: Van Jones, one of Obama's advisors on the environment, resigned after it became public that he had ties to Marxism and The 9/11 Truther Movement (for those of you unaware, the "Truther" movement contends that the U.S. Government was complicit in, if not directly responsible for, the 9/11 attacks). Now, first of all - do not post your conspiracy theories or arguments here, they will be deleted. If you want to know more about the Truther movement, there's plenty of information on the web. Many people will, however, defend Van Jones, saying he's a great guy, blah blah blah, but the problem is this: you can't accuse the U.S. Government of mass murder then wish to work for them. Do you think Disney, for instance, would hire somebody who publicly declared he believed Disney to be responsible for intentionally killing thousands? No. Not to mention, if you want to completely denounce the "Birther" conspiracy theorists as whack-jobs, you can't then harbor a conspiracy theorist in your employ.

What's just as disturbing is some audio from April of 2008 in which Van Jones declared that the civil rights movement had it correct by going after things piece by piece, otherwise - had they tried to achieve their whole agenda all at once - they would have failed. Okay, fine. Point taken. But it's what he says after that: that this is how the "Green" movement needs to operate. Let us all believe that all they want is some conservation, some pollution reduction. Then maybe we push for alternative fuels and cap and trade. Finally, the "Green" movement can dismantle "suicidal gray capitalism."

In other words, one of Obama's advisors wants to completely change the face of America.

Scary, but unfortunately not surprising from an administration that has put in tax cheats to run the IRS, and takes advice from a man who does not believe children become human beings until they are a few years old, or lets a man who wrote a book that claims that the elderly have no rights and can't be discriminated against with healthcare because they were once young, too, and had their chance, help author the healthcare bill.

This is the scary part about all these advisors and czars - nobody is checking up on them. Here we have a case where the President either did a horrible job vetting Van Jones, vetted him but made a terrible decision, or didn't vet him. The problem is, the answer is number 3. They chose not to vet him because they knew EXACTLY what they were getting. Van Jones was no stranger to this administration. All this appointment showed was that the administration either thinks we're stupid or too lazy to care who's running around the White House as an employee.

Again, the number of people with radical viewpoints that work in the White House are staggering, but in no way surprising for those of us who believed that people like Bill Ayers, Reverend Wright, and others were not just blips on the radar, but rather indications of who Obama is. He just continues to prove that point with each of these appointees that comes to light.

The summer has ended, but apparently, the fun has just begun.

J.E. Braun is the author of Paranoia, a 9/11 survivor's tale. 10% of profits from sales of Paranoia will be donated to the Twin Towers Orphan Fund (www.ttof.org). For more information, visit www.jebraun.com.