Boycott President Obama's Speech to School Children on September 8

It's the latest scandal, the worst news ever. Time to boycott school on September 8. Keep your children home. We must fight socialism and send a clear message that allowing our children to hear their freely elected President of the United States address them on how to work hard, apply themselves in school so they can achieve great things is paramount to aiding and abetting the enemy.

And of course, the enemy is our own President. So if you value your children, have them skip school in protest. It's the least a patriotic God-fearing American should do. After all, you never know what brainwashing methods the President will use to turn your own children against you. Next thing you know, they'll be turning you into the Obama police in brown shirts who will come to your house and arrest you for listening to Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.

So says the aforementioned Glenn Beck, a Fox cable news head who appears to be slowly losing his head, well his mind anyway!

They might be right though. As a 56 year old life long Democrat, I remember being in second grade when President John F. Kennedy ran against that other old man, you know the one, Tricky Dick Nixon. From a child's viewpoint, JFK was a shining knight in armour, white gleaming teeth and a smile that charmed even me at age 7. The other guy, ooh..something scary about those jowls and those mean beady eyes. Even then, I could spot a crook and charlatan.

I doubt however, that watching JFK on TV was what shaped my future political views. It had a whole lot more to do with parents who were staunch supporters of Franklin Roosevelt's party than anything. And also a lot to do with my Methodist church upbringing.

You see, back then the Methodist church was a leader in promoting liberal progressive social reform in our country. You know, terrible things like fighting racial injustice, working to get medical aide to seniors who had none (the future Medicaire act), working in poor rural areas of our country to provide medical clinics and schools for mountain children in Appalachia. My liberal progressive upbringing made me the activist I became in college. Yeah, I was one of those 60's rebellious teens who rioted in the streets against the Viet Nam War, for women's rights, and against racial injustice.

The GOP wants to turn that kind of liberal activism into a crime or at the very least, a sin. But I stand firm on the shoulders of men like Emerson, Thoreau, Ghandi and King. Civil disobedience is paramount at times to bring our government in line with justice.

Now we watch civil disobedience being used in town halls to fight what is perceived unjust actions by our government in reforming healthcare. If that be the true story, then I applaud those men and women who are choosing to express themselves. But is justice at the core of their disobedience or fear? And have unscrupulous dishonest men like Glenn Beck who are using a bully platform to express untruths corrupted the process? In my opinion they have and so it is my civil duty to proclaim this belief.

Democracy isn't the answer as Thoreau wrote in his famous essay, Civil Disobedience. In fact mob rule can destroy justice much of the time. Only an earnest search of our hearts for what we believe to be the truth weighed against not our own personal interest, but those of our larger society can be the final measure of our actions.

Is it good for my society, my country for millions of poor people to have no healthcare insurance and terrible healthcare that bankrupts us? Is it good for my society and my country to allow my government to use tax payer money to fund wars that I disapprove of on moral and ethical grounds? Is it good for my society and my country to provide healthcare for the elderly poor, (which is what Medicare was first envisioned to provide), but not for the working poor who are a growing number?

Is it wrong for schoolchildren in our country to be able to watch the President of the United States, who occupies a historic slot in time, as the first African American to be elected President.

I think Glenn Beck and his gang calling for the boycott of the President's speech have the right to do so. But I hope and pray that American parents have more sense than to teach their children such idiotic rot.

Instead I hope they talk with their children about what a great position of power and responsibility the President of our country has to occupy. I hope they pray for our President and his leadership. I hope they have enough sense to understand that poor urban children all over this country need to see what they can achieve if they work hard and learn much, just like the sitting President of the United States, who was elected by the majority vote of the people of this land.

Have we truly lost all reason as a people? Do I want Glenn Beck to shut up and lose his job? You betcha!

That's what my working farmer family taught me. There are nut cases in the world, Betty, who would destroy our freedom and our country. You have to learn how to recognize a man by his work not his words.

I for one, will be at my local school on September 8^th as a volunteer in a classroom and I'll be cheering on our President as he encourages our youth to excel, achieve and dream big.And then I'll be writing, blogging, going to meetings to support the duly elected President of the United States. I will teach my grand children to respect our government and it's power and it's leaders, just as I taught their parents. But I'll also teach them that there are times to stand up and be heard when injustice is being waged against the people, whether it's by a corrupt government official or corporate greed and political idealogy and most especially when it's by an fool like the aforementioned Glenn Beck.

We can place our children in glass bubbles and only allow them to hear our version of the truth or we can trust that our version of the truth is so real and so true that nothing will defeat it.

Resources

Fox News Channel, The Glenn Beck show

Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

Betty's brain