Today’s San Diego Union Tribune features an editorial entitled “A civil society? A school board polarized by politics”. After providing a highly distilled recap of Tuesday’s La Mesa Spring Valley School Board meeting, at which the board members who voted to ban President Obama’s speech from their schools ended up apologizing for their actions (except for Rick Winet) after catching hell from a couple of hundred angry parents, the paper goes on to say:
Time out, everyone!
A board’s role is to run our schools efficiently, supervise our children’s education and provide an atmosphere conducive to learning. It is not for trustees to install or unseat political parties. It is not up to special interests to escalate misjudgment into unpardonable sin. Or for audience members to hurl hurtful words while elected officials see killers behind every clump of verbiage. Adults must not take today’s tools of incivility and place them in the caldron that forges future generations.
Ten deep breaths, everyone. Parents can still use this as a teachable moment. Trustees should allow a fine superintendent and dedicated teachers to do their jobs. Point partisan groups toward the national stage. Let voters decide whether to accept apologies or call for change at the ballot box.
Then editorial number two, “Left and right’s mutual loathing is poison” goes on to bemoan to us:
Something has gone fundamentally awry in American politics. Big chunks of each party literally hate the other side.
Then editorial number three – “Playing the race card is not helpful”- asks us to ignore the corporate sponsored proto-klansmen behind the scenes playing up racial fears as a means towards defeating each and every action that the Obama administration proposes.
I don’t usually bother acknowledging the daily fishwraps’ pontifications because, if I did, I’d have no time to write about anything else. Suffice it to say that we disagree with most everything that gets written over there. But I can’t resist just this once…
Why is the paper surprised that people got angry at a school board trustee who claims, in a news story that appeared on their pages? Board member Rick Winet declared, repeatedly:
This was a direct assault on The Constitution of The United States of America. U.S.C. code 3503 clearly states that Congress prohibits the Executive Branch from overriding local school boards and local branches of government of control of public school curriculum.
Really? Where was the ORDER to override local school boards? (There wasn’t one.) And since when did the U.S.C. get added to the Constitution?
Or how about this? Winet again:
This Secretary of State, Arne Duncan, issued a politically charged e-mail along with irresponsible “lesson plans” in his initial notice to public schools…
…This administration actually lowered itself to asking students to “write a letter to themselves and ask themselves what they can do to help the President.” I would not and will not ever support this sort of selfish, socialistic message as public school curriculum.
I wonder if Hillary Clinton knows she’s been demoted. And I don’t remember “helping the President” as being part of Marxist dogma.
I could go on and on here about the layers of deception and outright lies by the right that that the Union-Tribune has either promoted in its news columns or ignored, but I won’t. And we don’t need to worry about any of the alleged misdeeds of the left, because the U-T has pointedly ignored every thing emanating from that side of the political equation. Unless it has to do with ACORN or Trade Unions, in which case it’s soundly denounced without regard to facts.
The bottom line here is that the actions of (and reactions to) the La Mesa Spring Valley School Board have brought national attention to just how low the Party of No and their supporters are willing to go. And now, having realized that ordinary people are standing up to their campaign of lies, the Union-Tribune has decided that civility is in order.
The fact is that the right-wings’ meme of Obama is Muslim/Socialist/Anti-Christ ran into a brick wall of common sense. They lost that round because people have decided not to ignore their lies anymore.
Civility will come when the lies stop. In the meantime, just say “NO” to The Stupid.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
If any part of the constitution was violated, it was the students’ right to free speech. End of story. These people made outrageous claims, were hit with a ton of backlash, and everyone – including the student population – is better off now….even though they got there way in the end, since it is likely many students will not ever see the speech.
Well said Doug.
Sounds to me like Obama should be talking with the parents. They seems to be the people who are misunderstanding thier duties, and not the children.
More proof that marriage should be illegal and a license required to spawn.
look out everyone! it’s a shawn raid! he got his coffee and opened his laptop and … zing! we think you’re the one shawn who added ‘take out hodad’s and put in a macdonalds’ – aren’t ya?
Thanks Doug. I got pissed off too when I saw today’s editorial. The nerve! BTW, where does the term ‘tin foil hat’ come from?
From Wikipedia.
A tin foil hat is a piece of headgear made from one or more sheets of aluminium foil or similar material. Alternatively it may be a conventional hat lined with foil. Some people wear the hats in the belief that they act to shield the brain from such influences as electromagnetic fields, or against mind control and/or mind reading.
The concept of wearing a tin foil hat for protection from such threats has become a popular stereotype and term of derision; the phrase serves as a byword for paranoia and is associated with conspiracy theorists.
The reasons for their use include the supposed prevention of perceived harassment from governments, spies or paranormal beings. These draw on the stereotypical images of mind control operating by ESP or technological means, like microwave radiation. The effectiveness of tin foil hats is disputable; however, the belief in their necessity is popularly associated with paranoia or mental illness
From UrbanDictionary.com
The special properties of aluminum foil that shield the brain from being read by “liberal activist” scientists. Also works nicely as a rain hat that gives the “tin roof” effect.
Example:
Dick Cheney hated getting wet for it faded his outer humanoid membrane. He discovered the tin foil hat he wore from his “undisclosed location” kept him warm and toasty.
I think McDonald’s should be illegal. Is is garbage input for a garbage output generation. It is poison.
Hodad’s should stay, but I find it hard to pay someone to make me a hamburger when I can make one at home. I mean, it s hamburger and not some exotic dish that is nye impossible to prepare.
Looks like the fishwrap hasn’t changed any. They don’t acknowledge the hate spew and fear mongering coming from the corporate sponsored right on AM radio. How convenient.
nunya, what about a blog-led boycott of Rick Roberts and his sponsors?
Hmmm…I’ve nearly smoked myself stupid over the decades that followed, but I still distinctly remember being a kid in the ’80s, when we relished the chance to witness an event of public importance in school. And not just because it meant we got to skip out on regular assignments…when President Reagan gave a midday speech, or President Bush (the first) was sworn in, or when the Challenger launched (granted, we had no way to foresee the calamity that would ensue), I felt an inexplicable surge of patriotism and pride in being an American, though as a grade-schooler the gravity of the event was probably lost on me. What the shit is up when kids today don’t get to feel a part of this? I’d swear sometimes I was batshit insane for feeling my five year-old daughter had more sense than some of these fucktards, if she didn’t constantly prove to me that my belief was anything but delusional…
pRick Roberts – I used to voice a recurring character on this fascist’s show that would show up maybe twice a month called “Pothead Dave from El Cajon” who he’d let on air to cuss him out…after I got his goat three times straight in something like a two-week span back in ’05 his screener learned my voice and eventually I got tired of waiting on hold endlessly when I knew he had no one else to talk to because he was begging for callers…