MOMocrats™

Tea Party Summer Camp? Seriously?

Remember when President Obama was going to give an address to the nation's schoolchildren about terrible socialist themes like working hard, getting an education, and going to college? Remember the Tea Party outcry about how terrible that was and how their children were being indoctrinated like Nazi youth?

Dana Loesch was one of the leaders on that one, going so far as to create an organization to boycott the speech and declare the day National Truancy Day. In her words:

Meanwhile, the conservative radio host Dana Loesch has launched a campaign urging parents to keep their children home on the day of Obama's speech. In an email urging against the "Socialist Indoctrination of Americas children," [sic] Loesch explains that Americans must not "mind our Ps and Qs and blindly follow their directives":

I'm guessing she'd have no problem with the newly-launched Tea Party Summer Camp, however. That's right. You heard (read) me. Tea Party Summer Camp. Let's see what kinds of activities the children will be involved in. Well, there's this:

The organization, which falls under the tea party umbrella, hopes to introduce kids ages 8 to 12 to principles that include "America is good," "I believe in God," and "I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable."

And then there are the games, of course. What would summer camp be without games?

One example at Liberty: Children will win hard, wrapped candies to use as currency for a store, symbolizing the gold standard. On the second day, the "banker" will issue paper money instead. Over time, students will realize their paper money buys less and less, while the candies retain their value.

"Some of the kids will fall for it," Lukens said. "Others kids will wise up."

Another example: Starting in an austere room where they are made to sit quietly, symbolizing Europe, the children will pass through an obstacle course to arrive at a brightly decorated party room (the New World).

Red-white-and-blue confetti will be thrown. But afterward the kids will have to clean up the confetti, learning that with freedom comes responsibility.

Still another example: Children will blow bubbles from a single container of soapy solution, and then pop each other's bubbles with squirt guns in an arrangement that mimics socialism. They are to count how many bubbles they pop. Then they will work with individual bottles of solution and pop their own bubbles.

"What they will find out is that you can do a lot more with individual freedom," Lukens said.

This is not a joke. It's deadly serious. I wonder, will they play a game where one of them gets sick and the rest of them walk away, because the one who is sick can't afford a doctor? Or will they play a game where half the kids' cabins are wiped out, sparing the other half, leaving half the kids with nothing and the rest of them going on with life?

It isn't unreasonable to compare this kind of activity with Hitler Youth indoctrination. 

Board games and toys for children served as another way to spread racial and political propaganda to German youth. Toys were also used as propaganda vehicles to indoctrinate children into militarism.

In MOMocrat PunditMom's new book, Mothers of Intention, she talks about raising political children. Let me be clear: I have no objection to raising kids who are engaged politically. In fact, I think it's incumbent on us as parents to do so. What I don't agree with is indoctrinating them. I also believe we can raise political children who are political, but not haters. I married a Republican. (He's recovering, but it took 20-odd years). For me to say I hate Republicans would be like saying I hated their father. It is entirely possible to raise children with political opinions and ideas who also manage to have respect for others who differ with them. 

But in today's reality, they also have to understand that there are zealots out there, zealots who want them to fall into lockstep and return to a time before there were safety nets and a society of connected people. That isn't going to happen. PunditMom nails it:

No matter the resources in today's vitriolic political climate, it is a parenting challenge to strike the right balance between conveying the political values and ideas that are important in one's family while at the same time teaching our children that those with differing political views shouldn't be discounted.

It is for this reason that I will not be encouraging my children (nor have I in the past) to attend Socialist Camp, Liberty Camp, or any other kind of camp where politics is the central theme. They won't be making any oaths to organizations (I can still remember the Girl Scout Creed), and they won't be blindly indoctrinated. 

Is there irony in a group of people who claim to love liberty taking a group of children and indoctrinating them without giving them the liberty to explore other avenues of political thought? I think there is. I also see this as a dangerous path to walk down, one that falls in lockstep with the idea of sending them to private "liberty schools" for the rest of their education, where they are meticulously shielded from the ideas their parents see as dangerous. This spawns a generation of intolerant ideologues. It's cultish.

If you think I'm overreacting, pay attention to this:

If the school is successful, Jaroch and Lukens will look for ways to run more sessions, either during the summer or after school resumes. In fact, Jaroch said the group might try to bring its curriculum to the public schools during Constitution Week in September.

By the way, this is happening in...Florida, where Governor Rick Scott is busy implementing the DeVos/Koch plan to privatize schools nationwide.

I snark about this camp on Twitter, but I'll be honest. Between efforts like this and privatization of public schools, Texas curriculum twists and corporate domination, I really am worried about the next generation in a big way. 

Stop the Bullying--Blog Action for National Coming Out Day, October 11, 2010

The latest suicide of a young person who was bullied about his sexuality by his classmates and acquaintances has me shaken up. Tyler Clementi's is the fourth such reported death in less than a month. And yet we continue to hear of more such suicides.

I'm stunned and horrified that two Rutgers students thought it would be "funny" to livestream schoolmate Clementi's sexual activity over the internet without his permission or knowledge, directly contradicting Clementi's request for privacy.

As a parent, I'm devastated by the Clementis' terrible loss of their beautiful, gifted son. There is nothing so heart-wrenching as parents forced to bury their child; a situation so profoundly unjust and sorrowful it goes against everything parents attempt in the simple, hopeful act of nurturing children. People of all ages recognize this grief; you need not be a parent to understand it. But I think parents feel a particular pain knowing that in some cases, their vast love and acceptance, like Wendy Walsh's for her now-dead son Seth, was not enough to counter the hate. When he came out to his mother, Wendy Walsh told Seth, "It's okay, sweetheart, I love you no matter what." I'm heartbroken that despite her abiding love, her son couldn't endure torment from his schoolmates and the deafening, indifferent silence of teachers and staff.

Ellen DeGeneres immediately made a moving and urgent plea to suicidal young LGBT people to "stick around." Be around for the changes, because society is changing--unevenly, slowly, in pockets here and there. But it is changing for the better.

Dan Savage, the popular sex-positive advice columnist, started "It Gets Better," a similar movement to reassure and encourage LGBT youth that they will find love, that with luck and perserverance and the warm support of friends and allies they will find their niche in the world.

National Coming Out Day is October 11, 2010--seven days from now. And October is Anti-Bullying Month.

I'm starting up a Blog Action that I hope everyone will join, from the parenting blogosphere, to LGBT bloggers who have already written and vlogged so movingly about homophobic bullying and the courage to come out. I know caring educators will have something to say, as will activists in the youth and feminist movements. I think we allies need to find one another.

If you've blogged a memorial about the suicides of of kids tormented because of their sexual orientation, if you have a hopeful coming out story to share, if you have resources to help people who witness bullying become the ones to stop it, please add your blog post link to the Simply Linked below. For the next seven days until National Coming Out Day, October 11, let's demonstrate that there's more love, compassion, and acceptance out there than there is cruelty and hate.

Dear Women Who Shop at Wal-Mart: We Need More Advocates in Congress, Wouldn't You Agree?

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post wrote a post called "Tough Love for Obama." It's a quick read.

Marcus writes:

I spent a fascinating evening last week listening via video hookup to focus groups, 30 women in all, in three battleground states: Pennsylvania, Missouri and Colorado. These were, literally, Wal-Mart shoppers -- the retail giant sponsored the discussions -- screened to exclude committed partisans of the left or right and split evenly between 2008 supporters of Obama and John McCain.

Go Read It: Nick Kristof, The Healers of 9/11 (Beyond the 11th)

It seems lately the news is steeped in unending reports of religious bigotry, with anti-Muslim bias driving opposition to the Park 51 community center, and now some idiot "pastor" who thinks burning a Qur'an to mark the events of September 11, 2001 is a good idea rather than a hateful provocation and incitement to violence. UPDATED: Apparently the pastor has decided to cancel his Qur'an-burning event. He had wanted to make a deal to have the Park51 project moved in exchange for cancellation. It doesn't appear that any plans to move the Park51 construction site have been announced, however.

Please, go read this: The Healers of 9/11.

In times of fear and darkness, we tend to suppress the better angels of our nature. Instead, these women unleashed theirs.

Paul Barker, who for many years ran CARE’s operations in Afghanistan, believes America would have accomplished more there if our government had shared the two women’s passion for education and development. “I can only wonder at what a different world it could be today if in those fateful months after 9/11 our nation’s leadership had been guided more by a people-to-people vision of building both metaphorical and physical bridges,” Mr. Barker said.

I have said it before, and I'll say it again, I believe women can lead the way to peace. These women already have. What we need to do is build on what they've started. Let's hang onto these two old-time notions--mercy and grace--as we mark an event that's indelibly etched in our communal memory and will no doubt continue to shape the steps we take going forward, Beyond the 11th.

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.

CA Prop 8 Overturned

When people hate you, you have to LOVE HARDER. (Paraphrasing Van Jones here.)

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Some religionists and others who believe that discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender folk should be legal will of course appeal. The fight isn't over.

But they'll be met with legions of us who believe in our hearts that equal protection under the law means everyone is included. That's who we are in America, that's who we really are.

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.

Go Read It: Same Sex Marriage and the Proposition 8 Vote

Finally, some analysis of the data taken from voters as they left the polls in November, 2008, when the California anti-gay marriage referendum, Proposition 8, was on the ballot.

One big question after the election: Who moved? Six weeks before the vote, Proposition 8 was too close to call. But in the final weeks, supporters pulled ahead, and by election day, the outcome was all but certain.

...

The shift, it turns out, was greatest among parents with children under 18 living at home — many of them white Democrats.

...

The lesson: It's not enough to make the case for same-sex marriage. It's also important to arm voters — particularly parents — against an inevitable propaganda attack. And it's crucial to rebut lies so parents don't panic.

We at MOMocrats knew this about parents--that's why we had post after post after post after post here on the site (maybe 9 or 10 in all) reassuring parents. We also knew religious conservatives who backed Prop 8 have made deep, dangerous incursions into Latino and Asian Pacific American communities via their churches, and we reached out to APA parents with bilingual video PSAs made on shoestring budgets to help counter this.

I just hope leadership on the marriage equality efforts can absorb these painful, but important lessons and take different steps in the future. When Prop 8 passed, we were horrified and hurt too. Maybe not as much as the people directly affected, but we were right alongside you. Mobilize your allies. We have to validate each other. We will do all we can, but we need your guidance, help, and resources.

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.

This Isn't About Ads Any More (Video Responses to Focus on the Family's CBS Super Bowl Ad)

As with many things that irritate, Focus on the Family's "pro-life" ad has gotten under the skin of a lot of people--people who prefer their sports politics-free, people who are pro-choice, and people who like their gay selves, siblings, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and parents just fine the way they are.

Can't go without mentioning the Planned Parenthood ad:

There's the spicier Raging Grannies ad (women after our own hearts who TOTALLY GET IT):

And now there's an ad making fun of the Focus on the Family's particular brand of right-wing Christian homophobia:

While these are all alternately touching, hilarious, and snarky, it's not about the ads any more. It's about a right-wing religious organization that's funded to the tune of $112,000,000 and chronically UNDERFUNDED pro-choice organizations. That's why MOMocrats launched this Tailgate for Choice campaign.

If we say we support choice and enjoy reproductive rights, then let's walk the walk with even a small donation to the organizations that protect those rights for us and provide needed services to women.

Cynematic needs more hours in the day. Period. She also ignores her personal blog, P i l l o w b o o k.

The Stu-Pitts of Congress, and Women's Health Care From the Waist Up

Forgive me if I sound a little bitter despite being deeply moved by the passage of the Affordable Health Care Act this past weekend in the House. It IS a huge achievement and one-third of what we need to get the bill to President Obama to sign. I'm proud and grateful so many wonderful elected representatives who truly want to help Americans were able to move mountains and pass the bill.

It's just that, well, that was quick. We had a wonderful feminist moment there, didn't we, when we realized that women are treated differently than men by health insurers. We finally exposed the widespread practice of gender-rating--or disparate pricing by gender--for health insurance coverage that unfairly requires women to pay more than men with similar health status. We learned how eight states still allow insurers to consider domestic violence as a "pre-existing condition" to deny women coverage. We saw documentation of how common it is for women to be uninsured and underinsured whether it's employer-based coverage or self-procured, and how this made health insurance reform of particular interest to women. A quick statistic from the Commonwealth Study linked immediately above:

Six in ten women with moderate incomes (between $20,000 and $40,000) report being unable to pay medical bills, being contacted by a collection agency for unpaid medical bills, changing their way of life to pay medical bills or paying off medical debt over time, as did almost half (46%) of middle-income women.

Women rallying support around health insurance reform, I maintain, helped lift poll numbers for the public option and lift some of the curse extremist Teabaggers had tried to cast on the bill.

I'm still waiting for those defenders of children to defend them.

Image by andyofne via Flickr

Really, this just goes beyond the pale. Picketing the school where our President's children attend with racist, threatening, hateful signs?

Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church is a hate group that goes around the country staging anti-gay rallies at some of the most inappropriate places (e.g. the funerals of former White House press secretary Tony Snow, victims of the Minneapolis bridge collapse, and U.S. troops) with messages like “Thank God For AIDS” and “God Hates Fags.”

I believe in the first amendment. I believe that speech, no matter how hateful and ugly, should not be suppressed. I also believe that allowing speech like this and last weeks' teaparty rally in DC to go unchallenged by those who claim to be 'defenders of liberty' is abhorrent.

Not My Grandmother's Christianity

The following is a guest post by occasional MOMocrat contributor Amy Corron Power, who also blogs at Another Wine Blog.

I have spent the better part of my life trying not to feel anything. It wasn't because I had a horrible childhood – I didn't. It wasn't because bad things happened to me – they did, but I'd been perfecting the fine art of “not feeling” long before that. Perhaps it was because the family motto was “Never Bring Undue Attention to Yourself.” Or it might have been that there were too many other people emoting in my house while I was growing up – and the only emotion not being used was anger.

So I did that at home – anger. But not the throw-a-fit kind of anger. Not the screaming and yelling kind of anger. But the kind you stuff deep down inside. The kind that gives you migraines. The kind that makes you eat too much. The kind that makes you stick needles and pins through your skin. The kind that makes you put yourself in dangerous situations and then believe you either caused it, or deserved it when bad things happened. Bad things like rape. Domestic violence. Living with a raging alcoholic who liked to leave and come back and then leave again.

The kind that makes you believe the song “Jesus Loves Me” does not apply to you. Oh yes, Jesus does loves some people – just not “you,” that is just not me.

I left the circus of anger and self-doubt. My life is no longer the Roller Coaster of Hell perpetuated by the Carousel of Bad Relationships. I have a loving husband, a pretty decent outlook on life, and I no longer tolerate any sort of abuse. And most of the time, I believe Jesus loves me.

What makes me furious, now, is that after it took me years of therapy to get past that feeling of unworthiness, of nothingness, of feeling that I didn't deserve love -- not the love of a man, not the love of friends – not the love of God – that a group of self-loathing, judgmental, self-proclaimed ultra-right wing conservatives have made me suspect anyone who advertises themselves as a Christian.