President Obama’s Speach to School Children, What is the Problem Here?

This is the text of his speech. Read it, and try as hard as you can to find a damn thing political about this, I dare you!

I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.
Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.
I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.
I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.
But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.
Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.
And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? 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.
And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.
You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.
We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.
Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.
Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.
But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it. I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.
But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave.
If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.
No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something
new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.
And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?
Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you.

Too bad some people shoot their mouths off before even knowing what the President was even thinking about, never mind putting into this speech.

There were some parent in hysterics over this, believe it or not. Obviously there were some out there who were using scare tactics and innuendo to get people emotionally overwrought, but what bothers me is the whole bloody uproar. What on earth did they expect him to say?

From CNN report:

Many conservative parents aren’t buying it. They’re convinced the president is going to use the opportunity to press a partisan political agenda on impressionable young minds.

“Thinking about my kids in school having to listen to that just really upsets me,” suburban Colorado mother Shanneen Barron told CNN Denver affiliate KMGH. “I’m an American. They are Americans, and I don’t feel that’s OK. I feel very scared to be in this country with our leadership right now.”

School administrators are caught in the middle of the controversy. Some have decided to show the president’s speech, while others will not. Many, such as Wellesley, Massachusetts, superintendent Bella Wong, are deciding on a class-by-class basis, leaving the decision in the hands of individual teachers.

“The president of the United States has asked us to facilitate his outreach to students. And in that vein, we have decided to honor the request,” Wong told CNN. “We’ll trust in his judgment.”

Republican leaders have not shied away from the debate. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a possible contender for the GOP’s 2012 presidential nomination, said Friday the classroom is no place to show a video address from Obama.

“At a minimum it’s disruptive. Number two, it’s uninvited. And number three, if people would like to hear his message they can, on a voluntary basis, go to YouTube or some other source and get it. I don’t think he needs to force it upon the nation’s school children,” he told reporters at the Minnesota State fair.

Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer released a statement this week accusing Obama of using taxpayer money to “indoctrinate” children.

“As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology,” Greer said.

“The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans … is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power.”

I am appalled at the utter stupidity of some of these assumptions! There have been SEVERAL Presidents who spoke to school children over the years. “Justify his plans”? What are you smoking, Jim Greer? Must be damn good stuff because you have lost touch with any kind of reality here! Same goes for Minnesota Governor Tom Pawlenty! What are you smoking? Or have you taken your medications lately? Wow! “Force it upon the nation’s school children”?

Shanneen Barron, if this speech is that scary, then I very strongly suggest you never, ever read any book beyond Grade 1 Level. Those are far more scary, especially the tween books with mysteries, death, and even romance at age 12! Good Grief! GET A GRIP!

I have a feeling that the Republicans just wanted to put the whole White House, President Obama, and the Democratic Party in the darkest light possible.

The uproar has NOTHING to do with this speech, but more about trying to garner votes in the mid-term elections.

There is a saying: “There may be some who believe you to be a fool, but the only proof may come when you OPEN YOUR MOUTH!” I guess some have proven just how big a fool they are.

Obama and Justice Department Release Secret Bush Memos

Looks like Mr.’s Cheney and Bush have an exercise in temper control now that the Obama administration has chosen to release some very damaging documents!

Memos written for or by the previous administration and president.

What is here is totally revealing for the way the abuse of American civil rights are seen as totally acceptable, as well as the deliberate flouting of virtually all international laws regarding war, those captured, and any possible “terrorist” activities. This is totally sickening when you realize just how much abuse the government and some of the agencies used, could use, and that every single person living in the U.S. was under threat from being arrested WITHOUT any warrant!

The so-called “legal” opinions are outrageous! More to come later.

Going Down? How Long Do You Think This Will Last?

Books to read, and a previous post that should be referred to when devising any solutions. Click here

Jobs going out the window, literally. Companies going under, literally. Houses and foreclosures happening so often now the news services no longer cover this issue. Wow! Like watching a huge ship sink, except this is in very slow motion.

My question here is how long do you think this is going to last?  I thought it may last a couple of years, but when I look at this like an injury to a body, with the bleeding so profuse, and the cuts all over, the outlook for this patient is tentative at best.

So, what do you think? What treatments are out there to stop the bleeding, the damage still happening? The more minds working on this, the better, is my thinking here.

President Obama used words like “Catastrophe, disaster” and, by looking at the damage even now, I have to agree with this.

Solutions! We will work through this, there is no other choice. But how? Come on, give it a go!

My somewhat brief understanding of CDS and loans that sank the banks. Click here.

Buying Only American Can Sink America

Loyalty is great, especially to your family and friends. When it comes to a country, loyalty can be good, but sometimes it has a double edge to it.

The drive to use the tax funds to restart, restore, whatever you want to call it, need not be tied to buying only American goods. Why? Well, as a lot of the US citizenry now are finding out, there are things you need to get from other countries. Oil and power are just two.

Blocking the import of goods such as steel, aluminum, and so on can backfire on the jobs the US and President Obama are desperately trying to create, restore and build. Erecting trade barriers also breaches some of the very trade agreements that the US wants to keep!

Like most other things in life, we live by cooperation, and this does mean we have to deal with countries outside our own.

Let’s see if I can simplify this for myself here. I need power to run a factory, but I don’t have enough local supply to do it. I set up a contract, an agreement with someone to buy it. In exchange, they want to buy what I produce. Sounds like a fair deal to start with.

Later, they cannot buy my goods, and because their own financial problems are causing headaches, they want to put that power to use in their own area. So, I can choose to refuse to buy their power, and up go the barriers. My own jobs go, along with the prosperity I was developing for myself.

While I can understand their reasoning, they NEED what I produce as much as I NEED the power.

This can get to be truly childish and petty, but in the real world, it can create huge disasters.

The US NEEDS oil, power, goods etc. from other countries as much as other countries NEED the goods from the US. It is symbiotic, if you like.

There ARE international agreements in place that need to be honoured, need to be kept, and integrity is one of the ingredients in international trade. I know there are some in the US that want to shut the doors, hunker down, and, while I can see the fear, the loyalty and the desire to make sure there ARE jobs coming, I can also see why the trades and the goods NEED to move.

What most people in the US don’t realize is that the supplies of some goods are NOT found within the US, they just are not there. Foods come from outside the country, along with a huge number of other things. Stop that and the US faces some pretty nasty results. Power is not totally generated within the borders of the US either, it is purchased from neighbouring countries, mostly because the private utility companies have NOT invested in creating more power, especially cleaner and more efficient power. The brown-outs in Los Angeles are symptomatic of this problem.

Some rant on about “Buying Amercan” without realizing just how much of the goods and other things come from outside the country.

Right now, the choice is within the bill facing the government, and I hope that someone will really take a hard look at what they are asking for  with the clause to “Buy American” and create international trade barriers.