The children are the future: Barack Obama, Van Jones, and right-wing insanity

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I encourage you all to read Capt. Fogg's fantastic post from yesterday on the right-wing insanity surrounding Obama's address next week to the nation's schoolchildren.

While the right is all mouth-frothingly abuzz over Van Jones -- who, I suppose, ought to resign, if only because he's become such a political liability (although, to be fair, and his right-wing critics certainly aren't being fair, while he did sign the Truther petition, he has stated emphatically that the statement "does not reflect [his] views now or ever") -- let's be clear about something: Van Jones is just one person. Even if you believe -- and there is simply no evidence for this -- that he was a dedicated Truther, the Truthers are a fringe group that has been thoroughly dismissed by mainstream liberals and progressives. (For my part, while I certainly see a connection between U.S. policies abroad and the attacks of 9/11 -- you have to be a fool or an idiot not to, like the American hegemonists on the right -- I simply do not believe that the Bush Administration knew what was coming and let it happen.)

It's a different story on the other side, though, where it isn't just one person but, seemingly, an entire movement, a movement that continues to state emphatically that it stands firmly by its extremist convictions.

Take the tea parties and town halls, for example, where conservatives and those incited by conservatives across the land and fully within the mainstream carry weapons and hurl attacks and accusations at President Obama and the Democrats with a ferocity that is matched only by the ludicrousness of their content.

In other words, while the Truther movement has been effectively repudiated among Democrats, similar insanity is in full force among Republicans. Take the Birther movement, for example -- some Republicans have dismissed it, but it's alive and well throughout the right-wing media, as are the accusations that Obama is a fascist, or a socialist, or something, and now that he wishes to brainwash America's children. And it's not just a right-wing fringe group that is pushing this new attack. For more on this -- and on the insanity of it all -- check out Tim Rutten in the L.A. Times:

While it long ago crossed the borders of reason and civility, the hysteria over healthcare reform is -- at some level -- understandable, because wellness and infirmity are really just stand-ins for those most terrifying of issues, life and death.

But there is no similar way to rationalize the bizarre controversy now raging over President Obama's plan to deliver a brief televised address on Tuesday to the nation's grammar school children.

According to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Obama will "challenge students to work hard, set educational goals and take responsibility for their learning. He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens."

Sounds innocuous. Who, after all, could be against good study habits, personal responsibility and productive lives? As it turns out, quite a number of people who seem to believe that Obama intends to induct their children into -- well, it's not quite clear what they're afraid of. The Web and talk radio are abuzz with various attempts to organize a boycott of Tuesday's speech. One group is urging parents to demand that their children be excused from watching the president and be sent instead to the school library to read the Founding Fathers. (The theory, one supposes, is that a good dose of the Federalist Papers will inoculate the young against Obama's attempts to subvert the republic through good grades.)

On Wednesday, Fox News devoted a substantial portion of one of its prime-time newscasts to a discussion of whether Obama is, in fact, trying to seduce schoolchildren to some darkly obscure personal agenda. The sole guest, a spokesman for the libertarian Cato Institute, reported that "we've gotten a lot of calls from people asking, 'How do I keep my child from being indoctrinated?'"

On Thursday, Jim Greer, chairman of the Florida Republican Party, accused the president of attempting to "indoctrinate America's children to his socialist agenda." According to Greer, "the idea that schoolchildren across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans for government-run healthcare, banks and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other president, is not only infuriating but goes against the beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power."

Anxiety over the speech seems particularly high in Texas, where many districts are offering parents involved in the boycott movement the option of taking their children out of class. (Whoever thought we'd see Texas treat advocacy of personal responsibility like sex education?)

(Read the whole thing.)

Of course, there's nothing odd about Obama's upcoming address. His predecessors spoke to students, too, after all. What makes this different is not what the president is doing but what his opponents are doing, which is turning an "innocuous" event into a culture war.

It's not Van Jones that's the problem. If it's insanity you're looking for -- insanity mixed with ideological, partisan extremism -- look no further than today's Republican Party and its conservative base.