The New Socialism

One day, I'm sure that future generations are going to look back at this period in our history and say, "What was that all about?"

The latest example of true weirdness that seems to be affecting even mainstream weirdness is the uproar - uproar! - over President Obama's plans to give a speech to school children urging them to work hard and stay in school. Turns out, this was going to be the president's attempt to indoctrinate our school children with his socialist ideology. Seems to me that socialism isn't what it used to be. In the past, you had to say you wanted to do things like spread the wealth around before you got accused of being socialist.

Socialism today is not the same as it once was, though. Now doing things like saying you should work hard in school, that personal difficulties aren't excuses to mistreat teachers, and that you should do homework instead of dreaming of being a rapper apparently qualifies you. If that's true, I guess I should probably change my voter registration.

As expected by the sane part of the world, the speech itself wasn't too controversial. In the aftermath, things seem to have calmed down. At least for now. Here's three more thoughts in closing.

1. This does not bode well for health care reform. Though hardly a direct link here, if certain people and parties are so intent on attacking the president when there is no controversy, you can imagine what they'll do when there actually is something worth fighting about. Prepare for potential ugliness.

2. I wonder if this is what conservatives felt like during the Bush years when everything the president did was subject to total attack. I mean, unlike Obama, Bush deserved it, but I can see how it would get wearing on people who supported him.

3. If you want to talk about indoctrination, check this out. Seriously. You won't believe it even when you see it.

Happy first day of school, folks!