Brainwashing

If what President Obama is going to tell America's school age children tomorrow is brainwashing, I am all for it. Although I would rather refer to it as a motivational speech about working hard, trying again after you fail, and being a productive member of society.

I think it's a great speech. Hopefully there are not that many parents who are seriously going to keep their kids home from school just because they don't like President Obama (great way to teach your kids to respect authority- not). Hopefully the kids that hear it will actually take some of it to heart and not just tune it out. Here are the parts I loved:

Every single one of you has something you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity an education can provide. Maybe you could be a good writer — maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper — but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor — maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine — but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a senator or a Supreme Court justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life — what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home — that's no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That's no excuse for not trying.

Here is my favorite quote:

Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

What Republicans call brainwashing I apparently see as inspiration. Oh well.