It appears that there is another outbreak of right-wing crazy, this time over President Obama’s innocuous plans to give a back-to-school address on Friday to our nation’s school children via video, as did both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush before him. This spectacle sadly reveals something of the political and/or racial paranoia that certain fringe elements submerge themselves in and spread to others, to the detriment of our democratic republic as a whole.
For one, the Florida Republican Party has gone full-tilt crazy against Obama’s purported agenda of spreading his “socialist ideology,” charging that “schoolchildren across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans for government-run health care, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other president.” State party chairman Jim Greer even went so fas as calling Obama the “Pied Piper” — you remember, the shady character who lured kids away from home.
For an excellent commentary on this sad matter, see Joan Walsh’s Salon piece here:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/politics/2009/09/04/obama_back_to_school_speech/
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