The Kids Stole My Brain Cells

Something just not has sat right with me about this Presidential Address to the Students. I am not talking about the event per-se, and it is just not the fact that lesson plans came down from the White House.

As a Stay-At-Home-Mom, I do not get many opportunities to listen and watch the main media, including the outlets supporters hate. I get much of my political information from the legislature, State Addresses, press releases, OpEds, news articles, etc, and then I research, some times in the wee hours of the morning for that is the only time I have to do it.

Maybe some one already has made the same suppositions I am going to make. But this is my Opinion, and it should comes to no surprise to anyone that I am one of the "discontented."

I will state I upfront that I know there are "crazed opposers," and as I have stated before, hateful 'name calling' helps no one. Both sides have been guilty of this, just as much there are corporate entities on either side that have their own agendas in either seeing President Obama plans succeed or fail.

I was thinking over the weekend that the timing was odd, and the fact how it was a rushed event that sent the schools scrambling to adjust their schedules and clamoring for information so as to plan their day (which for many was the first day of school with new and returning students). What made it even more difficult for them was it was announced just before a long holiday weekend.

I also reflected on the last several months since President Obama was elected.

The media, enthralled as they were with the Obama's election to presidency was quick to enforce the supporters opinions that those speaking out against it all must be racist, extreme right-wingers, fueled by cry-baby republicans and any media that gave any credence to the oppositions' voice. As weeks and months went by, the opposition?s anger was fueled by these assumptions made about them. Rather than be intimated by this, that anger grew stronger; the voices grew louder.

How can one's voice be heard if your legislators did not listen, dismissed you because surely you were ignorant, your thoughts not your own?

The anger and frustration continued to spread. I am not going to go into a list of events that helped this gain steam; it is not that difficult to get yourself for now. Carefully chosen labels were meant to demean and belittle this group. Who first labeled them as Astro-Turfers, Angry Mobs, White Supremacists, to name a few? Did you know that the first  "Obama is a Nazi" sign actually came from a progressive left group, to be shown in the middle of a group of protestors?

This was an ideal way to discredit those who were beginning to respect the opposition - many who had an instinct for taking a look at things that may not be what they seemed.

This is the lead in to August, when President Obama sent out his Senators and Representatives into the "masses" to have Town Halls with their constituents to "discuss" Health Care Reform.

By then, for many in the "mob," it was not just about Health Care Reform. It went beyond that.

Yes, I am biased and frustrated as well. I am frustrated at the politicians did not recognize it. I attended "Town Halls / Listening Forums" myself, not screaming, but listening and observing.

I and others realized many of these forums were not to discuss, or to really listen to any opposition.

They were more like campaign rallies to support the health care agenda. My Senator for one said when interviewed, though she heard from many that they were against the proposed legislation she would give a positive report to the President. The people who were "misinformed" will "come around."

Politicians continued to call those that were angry and frustrated were angry mobs, with plants from corporations. The mobs are un-American, Nazis, corporate mongers who just do not care about the unemployed, the poor, the sick, the uninsured. They are liars and racists.

Supporters insisted that all the videos and pictures coming out that purported to show what was really going on at these meetings, were 'doctored?' 

Surely, all the memos and web-pages publicizing how to manipulate the public in effort to get more support for the legislature were actually manipulated by the opposition?

Surely, the proletariat did not know from whence they spoke.

Surely, one can see that these hate mongers are making the congressmen fear for their lives.

Rather than "get everyone to see the truth, it backfired. Trust and support for the President and congress was eroding. The discontent with President Obama, Congress and their agenda has been reflected in repudiated polls. Claims that there were no alternate plans concerning the health care reform were proving to not be true; any proposal that did not include a government "health care option" could no longer be swept under the carpet.

Politicians up for reelection were getting nervous. Finger pointing that this was the entire former administrations fault was not working out so well anymore, especially since some of the things President Obama was doing was the same as GWB did. There was a growing 'feeling' that President Obama was to change the foundation of which our Country was built upon; a feeling he was not supporting the fact that the United States is a Republic; a feeling that he perhaps is attempting to create a New Republic modeled after "21st century Socialism." No matter their party line, people were more and more looking into the background of those closest to the President, the 'czars' so to speak.

Some in President's Administration were wondering how to turn things back around, to get the adoration back in place as it was during the campaign and right after he was elected. His Congress was going to reconvene in September, and the President wanted HIS final Health Care bill written by mid-to-late September. He did not need a disenfranchised base.

As I tried to sleep, I again wondered why would he make an almost impromptu visit to a school, turning it into a Presidential Address to Students, initially stating that all schools were required to view a live feed and having lesson plans created by the White House that were, inititally presented as a requirement for all teachers to use, from Pre-K to 12th grade.

Was he oblivious to the ever growing unease - to put it lightly - in the nation?

Could his administration be actually surprised by how this would be received, especially by those believing that the Federal government was continually superseding the States rights?

How did they think messages in the lesson plans would be well-received? Plans which came out before the text of the speech was publicized, interspersed more with adulation of this President, of how can I be a servant to the president, rather then motivating messages of 'doing your best,' 'education is important,' and 'do not give up on yourself.'

President Obama and his entourage are not stupid. The President was schooled, taught and performed as a Community Organizer in the 'early years.' The Administration's moves have been very calculated, manipulating the majority to see what they want them to see. They had to KNOW that there would be uproar.

So, what if this was the game plan:

1. Let his planned attendance and National Address plans be 'leaked' on the Internet before publicly announcing to all schools via National Press Release.
2. Publish information right before the Holiday weekend, where it would be difficult to get answers from their schools.
3. Subtly, 'after the damage is done,' change the verbiage from mandatory assemblies and the lesson plans to optional.
4. Change some of the verbiage in the lesson plans, mostly to the middle to high school plans. Leave the Pre-K to 7th mostly as is.
5. Play up the message over the weekend that anyone who is 'complaining' that they are fighting the 'doing your best,' 'education is important,' and 'do not give up on yourself' parts of the address. Surely, who can be against that?
   
6. Keep reiterating that so the public does not realize that is NOT what the complaints are about.
7. Use the notion that many people's memories tend to be short.
8. Play up the message that the complaints are a Republican ruse and a power grab, and may be stemmed in racism.
9. Play up the thought that people just want to see the President fail.
10. Play down the fact there were similar complaints from the Democrats when Republican Presidents personally met with students.
11. Play down any complaints that it has anything to do the Federal Government over stepping again, and that many voiced concerns any time any President did this.
12. Play down the complaints that this had much to do with lesson plans originating from the White House.
13. Play down the fact that this many are beginning to mistrust this administration.
14. Do this over the holiday weekend, when most people will be having BBQs, picnics, the last summer mini-vacations. Who will be have time or want to look/listen any further than what is being "played up."
15. Publish the proposed speech on Labor Day via the Internet when schools and government offices are closed. Be quick to convey "Ah-HA! See, there is nothing devious in this speech! Look at the ignorance and stupidity of the people who complained! What is wrong with this message?"

In doing this, you have discredited the opposition, re-forming the opinion that many of them must be racists; and power hungry Republicans, manipulated by a media that is moving from left to right.

People feel sorry for you; how dare anyone be so disrespectful to a President who just wants the best for us, for our students?

How could one be misled by these 'domestic terrorists.'

Slick, Mr. President.

Saul Alinksky, whose theories Obama studied and taught during his days as a Community Organizer, includes:

Rule 5: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It's hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.

 

Rule 7: "A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Don't become old news. (Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)

 

Rule 8: Keep the pressure on. Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period for your purpose. The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this that will cause the opposition to react to your advantage.

 

Rule 10: "If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive. Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog.

 

RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)

 

Alinsky also writes that the book, Rules for Radicals,

"is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.

Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins, or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom:  Lucifer."

So, very smooth move, Mr. President. You may have gotten your mojo back.

I am looking at the 'man behind the curtain,' and I for one certainly do not like what I see.