Hammer and Sickle High: 'Obamunism' Indoctrinates the Schools

The communist plot to infiltrate America's
schools is almost complete.

At least, that is, according to Jim
Greer, chairman of the Florida Republican Party who recently testified,
"As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that
taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist
ideology"-referring to the commander in chief's scheduled address
of the nation's schools on Tuesday, September 8^th.

Right-wing talk-show hosts like Glenn
Beck have made Obama's speech to the children their vein-popping tirade
du jour and ABC News reported that some school districts in six states--Texas,
Illinois, Virginia, Wisconsin, Missouri and Minnesota--are refusing
to air President Obama's speech to students. A small but noisy set of
parents have pledged that they will keep their kids home from school
on Tuesday rather than allow their children to be brainwashed by 21^st
century Bolshevism. Racism simmers beneath much of the vitriolic opposition
to Obama and has even boiled over into open bigotry, as Teresa Kopec,
a parent from South Carolina reported, "I just got anonymous phone
call calling me a 'n*gger loving communist' for giving pro-Obama
statement to local paper."

What sedition is Obama planning to
spread that has conservatives frothing at the mouth?

The White House released an outline
of Obama's address that reveals he will take up such known socialist
themes as getting good grades. The administration has also prepared
a Leninist lesson plan to accompany the speech that suggests, "Teachers
might conduct a 'listening with purpose' exercise based on the themes
of inspiration and challenges."

Regardless of how cross-eyed with
rage they get, the right-wing couldn't be more erroneous when they
spittle about Obama's desire to paint the White House-or the schoolhouse-red.
I should admit that I haven't read all three volumes of Das Kapital,
but I don't think Marx ever said anything about workers of the world
uniting to bailout bankers with hundreds of billions in taxpayer money.
Jettisoning even his tepid public option, Obama is poised to cave to
the for-profit health insurance companies. But it's in education-through
his relentless push for the privatization of the public schools in the
form of charter schools-where Obama's dedication to the free market
put him in a class of his own.

The public schools represent one of
the last free public government services guaranteed to all-and one
of the last great frontiers for corporate America. With the right-wing
school voucher programs discredited, the school privatization movement
has reinvented itself with a liberal veneer in the form of the charter
school lobby. Charter schools operate by taking public money and
placing it in schools that are outside of public oversight, and are
run by independent charter associations or for-profit entities.
Often times the CEOs of these charters garner bloated salaries and-just
like health insurance companies-they often deny applicants deemed
"high-risk."

Obama's charisma and liberal credentials
have helped put the charter school movement on the fast track-along
with his Race to the Top Fund, designed to pressure school districts
around the country to turn significant portions of their schools into
these unaccountable charters or be cut off from the desperately needed
federal dollars. As the Washington Post reported, "President Obama
is leaning hard on the nation's schools, using the promise of more than
$4 billion in federal aid-and the threat of withholding it-to strong-arm
the education establishment to accept more charter schools and performance
pay for teachers." It seems the plan is working with the recent news
that the Los Angeles Unified School District board voted 6-1 to authorize
opening up over 250 schools to bids by charter schools and other outside
entities.

Obama defended the Race to the Top
Fund saying, "It's not based on politics, it's not based on who's
got more clout, it's not based on what certain constituency groups are
looking for, but it's based on what works."

But the fact is, charter schools rival
investment banks for best example of the failure of the free market.
In the largest study on charter schools to date, Stanford University
found in their Walton Family (of Walmart infamy) funded study that students
in more than 80 percent of charter schools either performed the same
as-or worse than-students in traditional public schools on mathematics
tests. More damning, thirty-seven percent of charter schools students
posted gains that were "significantly below" what their students
would have realized if they had enrolled in their local traditional
public schools instead.

For Obama to truly earn the socialist
moniker his right-wing antagonists have branded him with, this is the
speech he would need to deliver to the children of America:

As another school year
begins, I have chosen to address the nation's children because dramatic
changes are needed if we are to ever attain a society fit for you to
grow up in.

I have come to realize
the hypocrisy of scolding America's youth for not taking more personal
responsibility for their future when we don't ask the same of America's
elite.

Today, I pledge to nationalize
the banks that took hundreds of billions of dollars from your parents
in the form of taxpayer bailouts after sabotaging the global economy.
I will use the proceeds to provide a single-payer "Medicare for All"
health system that can ensure students come to school healthy and ready
to learn. Furthermore, I will withdraw all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan
and with the money and morality saved from not killing people around
the world, build the strongest public school system the world has ever
seen.

Remember to always study
hard-with all the new jobs I am creating in healthcare and education
we will soon need smart young people like you working to meet the needs
of millions who previously were neglected.

If Obama delivers this speech on Tuesday,
I would be happy to write an apology to Glenn Beck requesting forgiveness
for not heeding his warning of creeping socialism.