Fergus Falls schools won’t show Obama speech live

You expect that kind of crap down in Arkansas or maybe Texas, but Minnesota???

Why is this a surprise in Minnesota? Just recently, two Anoka High School teachers kept their jobs after a settlement of $25,000 was paid out because of their repeated homophobic taunting of a student. As Frank Zappa said, it’s dumb all over.

Looks like censurship to me. Are books next? Maybe we should follow Texas and hire a religious right nut to run the public education system. MB available after she loses her seat next election? Is this the religious right again calling Obama Hitler when they themselves rule with fear tactics and lies? Minnesaota nice huh, you betcha. What a scared bunch of parents. Allow your kids to run with gangs, use drugs, grow up lazy and not an ounce of sense but make sure they only learn ignorant racist hateful ways to carry on your perverted beliefs! Good going Fergus Falls.

Will Kline be providing advance review transcripts any time he makes an appearance at a public school?

Dumb all over…and a little bit ugly on the side!

Agree with him or not, he’s our legally elected President. Whatever happened to the conservatives’ respect for authority?

When was the last time Kline even made a public appearance? He hasn’t had a townhall meeting in like 4 years. He’s just a foot soldier of the Republican Party.

I think they should definitely provide the schools with a transcript, but after doing so, the speech should be aired.

A healthy distrust of authority is a good thing, tho it’s coming from the wrong place in this case.

Won’t they look stupid for not showing this video! Picture it now, Obama talks good character and hard work and Fergus Falls doesn’t like that message. What’s that say about Fergus Falls?

http://bit.ly/6uAEo

Becker will look stupid, too.

Why are the lunatics being given so much power? Apparently, it doesn’t matter how stupid you are, it’s just how loudly you can yell.

This speech by President Obama to the entire school-age population across our nation, is unprecedented. He will be addressing many young, impressionable children.

He alone, who owns the youth, gains the Future!

– Adolf Hitler, speech at the Reichsparteitag, 1935

Even advertisers know that if you can get a tween or teenager to develop brand loyalty at a young age, they will stick with that brand their entire LIVES. Obama is no fool. He knows exactly what he’s doing: making young democrats. And he doesn’t even have to say anything, except, “get a good education. stay in school,” and they will have a positive impression & think everything he says is wonderful.

But what about the 2nd speech? Or when he says your parents are standing in the way of change? then what do we do? Allow something, that’s already been allowed? How would you stop it?? It’s insidious.

I’ve been living in the USA for one year and a half now, and I absolutely love the US.
Though one thing really bother me: how everything is always about democrates or republicans. It seems that you always have to choose a side, and that each party always gonna criticize what the other does not matter what. I see very ilittle respect between both party, and this is what is really dividing this country I think.
I just wish news channels were reporting fact and only fatcs, not their political point of view each and everytime, it would help too!

I didn’t realize it’s that easy to influence school leaders. All they received were “a few calls” and they shut it down. It would be a shame if they received “a few calls” asking them to reconsider. Wonder what would happen then?

Maybe the kids in “Fergus Falls” ain’t as bright as the rest of the kids in Minnesota and won’t be able to think for themselves?

I bet that those same good ol’ boys in “Fergus Falls” would have no problem having a military spokesperson speak with the same kids (I would support both the President and the military speaking to students by the way).

By the way – if “Fergus Falls” the “Deep South” of Minnesota or something?

Maybe I’ll take a drive over and see if I can get a cheap Dodge Charger with a Southern Flag painted on the top…

Outrage Over Feigned Outrage!

What the hell is wrong with people? Okay, let me narrow that down a bit – what the hell is wrong with some people?

Next week President Obama is scheduled to give a speech to school children throughout the nation. The topic of this speech is the importance of school and education and setting goals.

Parents are outraged. Outraged about the President of the United States giving a speech to children about the importance of school.

The horror! The outrage! The Gall!!!!

Of the parents, not the President.

When did a motivational speech from the leader of the free world become a detriment to the children? Because you don’t agree with his politics you will rob your children of a message that, let’s be frank, they probably need to hear. What makes him unqualified to speak to your children? Is it because he rose from a broken, scattered childhood to become the President? Is it because he was able to overcome what he did not have and accomplish what he wanted? Is it because he has, to an undeniable extent, accomplished the American dream? What is it?

For those that even want to think race, it’s not that. I’m not turning this into that – at all. I won’t accept that. That is the cheap way out. While that may be an issue for some I like to think we’ve evolved enough as the human race to overcome that ridiculous, childish bullshit. This has nothing to do with race.

This has everything to do with ignorance. Paranoia. Partisanship. Polarization.

Anyone that has read any of my posts knows that I am VERY opinionated, and I make no bones about it. And I don’t apologize for it. There is nothing wrong with that. Until it reaches a point that you think the “other side”, whatever the hell that constitutes, is constantly attempting to undermine you. Even to the point of hypnotizing your children with propaganda.

When I was in school we were hypnotized also. President Reagan gave us all a speech – geared toward school children – on taxes. Something we weren’t even old enough to pay let alone give one iota of crap about. President Bush (Sr.) gave a speech about education as well. He talked about space a lot. Even drugs in space. Do you think I had the option of not watching those? Do you think I was given the option of calling in sick by my parents?

No.

In fact, the mere suggestion that I wanted to call in sick because the President was speaking would have bought me a quick smack to the head. And rightly so. When I was growing up we were taught respect. Respect of one’s self, respect for your elders, respect for others, and respect for your country. Something which seems to be massively lacking of late.

Whether or not my parent’s agreed with the President’s politics we were taught to respect the man – he is the President! To be outraged that he will attempt to motivate your children to stay in school and place a massive amount of importance on an education is an absolutely ludicrous notion to me.

The people that claim to want their country’s “core values” back and return to the way things once were are certainly not showing it by teaching their children not to listen to opposing views. How are we suppose to accomplish anything with a mindset that you should only listen to opinions which mimic your own? Even if you don’t agree with one aspect, or even several aspects, of the current administration’s politics how can you teach your children a lesson such as “don’t listen to the President, we don’t agree with him”? Do you not trust your children to recognize the difference between what you may consider “propaganda” and actual motivation to do well? Are they that single-minded? I don’t think so. But I think you do. Or you want them to be, you know, like you are.

I’m actually a bit aghast that people are getting “outraged” about this. It’s ludicrous.

But you know what? Go ahead and keep your children at home. The more I think about it and the message they would receive if they actually commit the cardinal sin of listening to the President of the United States and start to place importance on their education, the more I think those may not be the people I want to be the future of this country. If they are not open-minded enough to listen to a different point of view than what you force-feed them from your one-sided, absolute right and absolute wrong view of life, maybe I don’t want them to be the ones that rise to the top.

Maybe we have enough of those people in charge now

Tony maybe you should change the station once and awhile . Your talking points are showing.

I wasted a lot of time drafting a reply to Tony, and then I realized it would do absolutely no good. Anyone who could write something like that is beyond reasoned discourse.

Good luck wrestling with your demons, Tony.

>>> Tony

“Even advertisers know that if you can get a tween or teenager to develop brand loyalty at a young age, they will stick with that brand their entire LIVES.”

So is this why the ROTC wants to be in high schools?

Are teenagers able to differentiate between what the military tells them and what the President tells them – or not?

I hope when these schools get their yearly visit by the military, they’ll not allow them on campus to recruit impressionable young minds. Oh, wait – they can’t do that since their funding is contingent on allowing recruiting in schools. Amazing that some enlisted personnel or officers can get into our schools with no problem while the Commander in Chief in his role as President and father of two young girls who served as a great role model to so many young kids in this country – simply wants to give them a good school year send off and tell them to work hard – he gets censured or not shown at all. These people need to recognize their objections for what they are – racism and hatred that they will not recognize. If this were Sarah Palin – let’s face it – she was the candidate, not McCain – they would be all over this as the “great mom speaking to the kids of America about staying in school and working hard” – and she’d put an inappropriate plug in there for religion too, of course.

dumb all over

You people don’t get it! When you piss people off by taking anything and everything out of schools which could even REMOTELY offend somebody, you’re bound to get a response like this. No one likes to be told what they can and can’t teach their children and when the people who try to tell you what you can and can’t teach your children want to give a speech to your children…what do think is going to happen. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Religion and politics are either allowed in schools or they’re not!
Regarding the last comment about the military…are you a dolt!!!!! The military is the entity that protects our country and our freedoms, not a political machine. That’s just what we need, more liberals bashing our armed forces…get a life!

School should be a place for free exchange of ideas. It is not a place for political censorship.
In this case there is no political intent on the part of the presidet, just a sincere effort to have all children benefit from his words of encouragement. A school administrator must show this motivational message at the begining of the school year or be in default of his or her responsiabilitys and be removed. If seeing this message helps one child it is worth it. Not showing this motivational message by our president is disrespectfull and unamerican.

I’m from Fergus Falls also and I ashamed of all the right wing knuckle dragging neanderthals that live here. This issue has brought every racist out of the woodwork. We have people here who are actually proud of being stupid, they think if you can read you must be a elitist.

As dumb as these tea baggers are, they are smart enough to know that if their kids listen to the President they will find out that daddy has been lying to them. The school board is a bunch of cowards in a city full of cowards. When you pass by on interstate 94 keep going some of this shit might get on you. We can’t even comment on this story in the local newspaper because they have deleted all comments about this subject.

“No one likes to be told what they can and can’t teach their children ”

Who, exactly, is doing that?

You can teach your kids any crazy crap you want. You can also make up crazy crap and post it on this wonderful website.

Public schools are a little different. Fortunately for the children, they seem to gravitate towards reality-based learning.

Our president – yours too – was not born into privilege. I’m sure if it was a conservative speaking to school kids, elected with that background, you’d be cheer leading with pom poms and everything, not screaming like infantile sore losers.

STOP!!! The speech that WAS to have been given to the kids was more political than a pep talk… It seemed fishy …and thank God that this wise Fergus Falls Supt. could see that and wanted it reviewed…. Now… if he had not done what he did….there would have probably been a lot more angry parents. KUDOS TO MR. NESS.

I’m mortified for our area that while Mr. Obama’s Inaugural Parade was good enough and widely hailed as an honor for the Fergus Falls High School Marching Band, the President’s thoughts are not good enough to be heard in the same school district. UNBELIEVABLE!!!! Regardless of one’s politics (I didn’t vote for Obama), the President of the United States giving a simple speech with a powerful message regarding the importance of staying in school is just fine with this citizen. Blocking this speech smacks of partisan censorship and I question it’s validity as a legal thing to do. What happened to the Constitution? What about freedom of speech? What about freedom of the press? I’m deeply embarrassed that our little town has to suffer the scrutiny of the entire nation due to a few ultra-conservative nut-jobs…

“The speech that WAS to have been given to the kids was more political than a pep talk”

Prove it. Line by line. Otherwise, grow up and quit making stuff up.

Did you ever notice how these tough guy tea baggers, that shout down old ladies and disabled women in wheel chairs at town meetings are the same rough and tumble “Deliverance” men of the woods who run around like the frightened villagers in a Frankenstein movie at the thought of a black guy giving a speech.

They know their children are way smarter then they are and they can’t take the chance on letting junior know what a fool daddy is. The kids will figure it out in the first five minutes. “Hey this ain’t the crap ma daddy told me?”

I wonder how that whack-job over at the Fergus Falls Daily Fish Wrapper who wrote the letter to the editor would feel if Obama gave his speech “talking in tongues” like she and her husband do on their public access channel show.

Obama could go before the cameras and mumble some gibberish, roll around on the floor and pop his eye balls out and she would buy anything he said, even some socialist stuff. She would clap her hands together, look to the sky and shout “he is in the spirit, God is talking through him”, “we must listen and obey” and if Obama threw in a snake or two she would absolutely levitate.

But lets think about something a little more realistic. Suppose a committee of good god fearing Christian parents went to Ms. Jane Fournier and said, “we think your television show is harmful to our children and their young formative minds. Therefore we want you to bring us a tape of your show three or four days before you put it on television. So we can scrutinize it for any objectionable material. Like lewd body movements or suggestive rolling on the floor, or mumbled speech like you were drunk or cruelty to animals like tossing snakes in the air or bestiality like kissing snakes”

Do you think this phony would suddenly remember the constitution and how it is supposed to apply to everyone now that it is her in the hot seat? Do you think she would have a sudden revelation about free speech? I bet she would say “I’ve been a liberal Democrat my whole life, how can this happen to me?”

Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.

-Abraham Lincoln

Pretty much speaks for itself about the bowel called Fergus Falls and flakes like malmstrom.

I think I have this redneck school thing down now, it took me awhile but I finally got it.

You can send your kids to a school that…..

1. Teaches that the world is only 5000 years old……………yes
2. Teaches that man and dinosaurs lived together like the Flintstones…………….yes
3. Teaches that you can kill someone for working on Sunday………………….yes
4. That says it’s OK to sell your daughter into slavery……………………..yes
5. That say it’s OK to marry your cousin………………….absolutely, if she has most of her teeth
6. That says it’s OK to kill your kids if they back talk……………yes
7. That says snakes can talk, well at least they used to…………………….yes (hiss)
8. That says it’s OK to carry your own white sheet in your lunch box……………yes
9. That says you can listen to a black man give a speech on that new fangled TV thang…………hell NO!!!!!

Some comments in this thread have been deleted for violating our comment policy. Please, one username per IP address/email address, and cut the ad hominem.
http://minnesotaindependent.com/policies

This is ridiculous. I’m a student at the Fergus Falls High School and am very upset over this. Our band marched for Obama for his Inauguration but we can’t air a message from our PRESIDENT? Whatever happened to freedom? If parents are allowed to send a note saying that they don’t want their child to watch the speech on Wednesday, why can’t they just let us watch it live and have parents send notes one day earlier. Am I just crazy or does that make too much sense?

If you want to keep your kids home.. KEEP THEM HOME. It’s your choice. BUT DON’T TAKE THE CHOICE AWAY FROM OTHERS. THERE’S A NAME FOR THAT… AND FOR PEOPLE WHO DO THAT… Taking people’s voices away. There was one man in particular who did just that… I think it’s pure foolishness. Bush was actually pushing an agenda when he was talking to kids. Have you listened to Bushes speech to American from a classroom? I don’t remember everyone whining about that. Obama is not pushing an agenda. Republicans need to pick their battles and stop complaining about EVERY LITTLE thing like little cry babies. The Republican Party of Florida who was totally opposed, has changed their minds and now endorses Obama’s speech… Nothing wrong with telling kids to stay off drugs and stay in school. You know… there are people in each school who voted for Obama and who have children who needs to be told to do well in school… what about them? What about the kids… even black kids who could use a pep talk? I guess they don’t matter. Too bad you’re all terrified. Wow… Obama must have a lot of power of you.

To all the school districts who actually played along with this Republican nonsense..

Booooooooooooooooo!

Well The Fergus Falls schools let the kids hear President Obama today. But just the audio and no video. BTW, guess how many concerned parents showed up at school…..just one (1), that s right just one.

I am a 58 year old retired librarian, and in all my 58 years I have never known a president to be this microscopically watched. Until the world and america face facts that We need to have serious dialogue about the real problem (Race) then we will never solve America’s problem in the world and at home. We dannce around the issues. I have lived in America all my life and sometimes I feel that the only way to have peace and be black man and be free is to go to glory. We all say that we are christians but we are not, simply because Christ taught us to love one another. Problem is the master cannot forgive Lincoln for freeing the slaves (no more fields for us) The slave can not forgive master for enslaving us. We have a racial problem in America and until someone say exactly what it is and stop dancing around the problem in the congress and house the problems in america will never be solved.

Fergus Falls looks pretty paranoid and stupid about right now.

Well,lets see! Hey dad, that man on tv that doesn`t salute the flag was at are school today.Yea ,right.No, I don`t want a communist,lier, talking to, or even looking at my children.If you can take religion out of our schools then you can take government out also.I raise my children. Not you or any president or any teacher.I have my rights also. Now I would like to tell all you blacks out there that keep calling republicans or any one that doesn`t like Obama,a racist,something that maybe will keep your mouth shut.I don`t like obama and I am a republican and you keep wanting people like me to admit that we are racist. Would it make you shut up.OK!Well then,we republicans are racist. How`s that? So now you got what you want! And now you don`t ever have to say it again,and we don`t have to listen to it any more.Are you satisfied?

Not only are you a racist, but you can not spell very well. No big deal, it just means you are a poorly educated racist.

God gifted my Obama

gaetano-are you retarded???