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The new academic year in the United States, which began on September 8, was marred with a massive verbal attack against President Barack Obama.
As usual, the attack was conducted by ultrareactionary radio hosts, who compared Obama to Hitler, Stalin and Mao Zedong, claiming that Obama wanted to infect American schoolchildren with ideas of fascism, socialism and communism. Rush Limbaugh added Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-il on the list and said that Obama wanted to turn the US youth into Hitler Jugend and Komsomol Organization. Sean Hannity of Fox News called Obama a political pedophile.
All of those remarks were made after Obama’s 20-minute back-to-school speech.
Republican leaders in Florida and Utah urged parents not to let their children go to school on the first day of the new academic year, when the president’s speech was going to be broadcast.
"If you're concerned, keep your kids home for the day,” David Bradley, a Republican and member of the Texas State Board of Education told the USA Today.
Fox TV channel urged its viewers not to let Obama turn US schools into Gulags, Nazi death camps and Chinese concentration camps.
The White House was caught on the hop with such a storm of insanity.
In his speech, Obama urged children to follow their dreams, to respect teachers, to study well and make conclusions from past mistakes. Anything communist there?
“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.
“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 20 or 50 or 100 years say about what all of you did for this country?” Obama said.
Does it sound like Mein Kampf?
Obama delivered his speech on September 8 at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. There are 15,000 schools in the United States, where 50 million students study. It is hard to say how many of them were listening to the president’s speech. Each school provided an alternative hour for those students, whose parents did not want them to listen to Obama’s speech.
Obama delivered a brilliant speech, as he normally does. However, when it was time for questions and answers after the speech, he became a totally different person. The president was making long pauses between phrases; one could see that he was taking a great effort to choose words for answers, as if he did not want to say something that he must not say.
A word spoken is past recalling. If Obama had said “Learn, learn and once again learn” then Rush Limbaugh and others would have had a good reason to say that Obama was quoting Lenin to 50 million of American students. Obama said nothing of the kind. All the accusations and comparisons do not make any sense. At all.
Moskovsky Komsomolets