Brainwashing Propaganda, or Morality Lesson?

[Taem]

He's delivering a speech telling the kids to work hard, don't do drugs, and stay in school. What is he trying to accomplish? Well, golly gosh, maybe to get kids to work hard, not do drugs, and stay in school? It's not like presidents have been shy about saying this kind of thing before.

But, I guess, if you listen to an outlet that regularly implies that Obama is building a paramilitary force composed of ACORN and Americorps who will take the guns of patriots away so they can't resist his Nazi-Commie-Islamofascist coup d'etat, then I suppose this all makes sense and seems very ominous.

Me, I think it's trivial, innocuous, and of basically zero consequence.

I enjoy reading their [Fox] news articles because they are entertaining and do have stories no other station will touch, but when you bring it all together like that, it does make the sensationalism of what they are saying about Obama to seem quite ridiculous, if not biased merely to generate news.

Also, as someone with a foot in the door of the history world, let me tell you that if you're trying to use history to teach morality, you're in for a wild ride.

The "padded" version of history they [public school] taught us was dry, skewed facts to make them less grisly, and was easily forgotten after a few months. I have a personal interest in American historical incidents, and enjoy learning about both perspectives of each incident. Through this, I believe that there is much to be taught by asking a lot of simple questions that need to be asked such as, "why did they do this?", "what were they trying to accomplish?", "who did they hurt along the way?", "did the ends justify the means?", "how would you of done it differently, and why?” I think the atrocities of our history are a fantastic learning place.

I don't believe you learn to be good from watching the Care Bears but quite the opposite by observing the terrible things people do to one another and coming to the realization that you don't to raise your family (or be raised) in a world like that. You don’t want to teach excessive violence, just ask the deep, moral questions that get young minds thinking about how they want to live their lives. It’s by talking about these terrible things and understanding them that you figure out how they affect you, if not personally then emotionally. Case-in-point is if we give everyone the silver-spoon in school, what are we expecting our kids to learn in school?

Although, I cannot discount that the school system where I went to school in was - and still is - academically behind in almost every area, so perhaps high-schoolers are actually taught stuff I wasn't and in a far better way than I was. If so them perhaps my realizations are nothing more than catching up. Who knows.