President Obama's Speech to Students (Now on Video): A 16-Minute Brainwashing

President Obama gave a speech Tuesday at Wakefield High School in Virginia that was neither partisan nor socialist in its content. In fact, the speech (the video for which can be found all over the internet) before the school children at Wakefield was about as apolitical as one could get, although he did say that a good education would make one a better elected official. Conservatives, especially radio and television talk show hosts, have lambasted President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan for weeks over what they see as an "invasive abuse of power" for the content of the speech in which the President delivered. That was before they read it when it was released to the public a day before the speech. But when they were called on this skip in logic, conservatives simply shifted gears to the lesson plans sent out by the Department of Education that were suggested to be used in conjunction with the President's speech to the students. Conservatives took exception with the non-mandatory letters to President Obama (letter on how to help President Obama do his job better) as a means of indoctrination, of insinuating the government between parents and their children.

But that didn't stop many conservatives from making outrageous claims that President Obama was some sort of Pied Piper of Hamlin, ready to abscond with the minds of America's school children. Parents were talking about keeping their children home from school (an idea made even more popular by uber Right winger Glenn Beck) or that he was somehow promoting socialist values, would promote "his socialist ideology, " as was offered by Jim Greer, Chairman of the Republican Party of Florida.

But that did not come to pass. In a little under sixteen minutes, President Obama gave a speech before Wakefield High School that spoke of self-respect, the value of a good education, motivation, and taking personal responsibility for one's actions and one's goals in life. He told the students that he believed in them and "expected great things" from them. Speaking of various career choices during the speech, Obama said, "You're going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can't drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to work for it and train for it and learn for it."

But this controversy isn't over. Even though Jim Greer admitted in an interview that he had read the speech and found nothing wrong with it (and that he would let his children watch the president), he qualified his acceptance of content by saying, "But it remains to be seen if it's the speech he's going to give." Greer also said, "Now that the White House got their hand in the cookie jar caught, they changed everything."

But here is the crux of the problem. With conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Jim Greer, you are always trying to disprove a negative and it cannot be done. Conservative bloggers and talk show hosts are already stating as fact (although it is actually unknown) that President Obama altered his speech before releasing it for public perusal. What is true is that the Department of Education withdrew its lesson plan idea that was to accompany the President's speech. They agreed that the message could be construed as ambiguous.

However, the text of President Barack Obama's school speech to the students of Wakefield and America may have still been in its basic first draft state. It isn't known. Not yet. Maybe never.

Candy Crowley reported on CNN that the White House insists that the speech released to the public was not changed and the text of the speech that was given is the original text. Still, it would be interesting to see the various and separate drafts made of the speech before it became the speech that he gave (because who amongst us writes a perfect first draft?).

But you can rest assured that Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, and Jim Greer will continue to say that the speech was altered after they complained, after they fought back the socialist agenda, after those invasive power abusers were caught red-handed attempting to manipulate the impressionable minds of America's school children.

Because you cannot disprove a negative...

But what does it say about one's political opponents when extrapolated and intuited information is treated as fact?

So... President Barack Obama gave a speech Tuesday to the students of Wakefield High School and to the rest of the nation's school children. Some watched it in class. Some watched it at home. Some parents refused to allow their children to watch it at school or kept them at home to ensure that they did not see it.

And those that did not allow the President's sixteen minutes of words of encouragement to the nation's school children proved only the power of fearful suggestion as they lived and continue to live it. It is the suggestion that something new, innovative, or just plain different is something to fear. And that, too, can be a brainwashing of the self-imposed kind. Because they do not want the President interfering with their own familial indoctrination of their children. They fear that somehow their children will be the worse for their exposure to an idea that is disagreeable to them. Different. Perhaps, heaven forbid, opposed. For it is the fear of outside knowledge, of outside ideas, of things foreign, of things unfamiliar that sets the mind and bogs it in its own perpetual cycle of ignorance.

It is the mindset that breathes life into fringe groups like the "birther" movement and gives rise to the idea of "death panels" where nothing exists that even suggests such a nonsensical idea.

It isn't the allowance of your children to be exposed to the ideas of others that makes them more susceptible to brainwashing. It is the disallowance and its companion ignorance...

But the video of President Obama's speech is out there. It's on the internet. One can judge for oneself whether there is anything harmful in the content (or perhaps it is subliminal?). Conservatives are watching it now, freezing it here and there, amassing all sorts of sound bites to be used out of context later. And if you are a proponent of the truth, it is suggested that one should watch the video of the President's speech. And if one is a fan of the ridiculous and the farcical, it is suggested that one tune into Sean Hannity's show for the next few days to see just how this speech is turning children into drones and destroying America or "The Glenn Beck Program" to see how he turns this innocuous speech into one of socialist mind-warping and mandatory reparations for African Americans.

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Watch President Obama's school speech to the students video.

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Fox News
President Obama's Speech to America's School Children, MSNBC
"Anderson Cooper 360," CNN Television