Obama: Health and education

A new Harris poll reveals Republican attitudes about Obama:

• 67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.
• 57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim
• 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president"
• 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did"
• Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist."

The belief that Obama is a “domestic enemy” is widely held—a sign of trouble yet to come.

...The poll, which surveyed 2,230 people at the height of the health-care reform debate, clearly shows that education is a barrier to extremism. Respondents without a college education are vastly more likely to believe such claims, while Americans with college degrees or better are less easily duped. It's a reminder of what the 19th-century educator Horace Mann once too-loftily said: "Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge."...

Read the full article in The Daily Beast.

Obama, I think you may need to focus on education reform. The 'shift happens' video goes some of the way to investigating the skills we need to teach our kids to prepare for the world of the future, but don't we also need to teach our kids basic discernment i.e. how to judge based on measurable benchmarks rather than fearful folktales? Isn't that a pre-requisite to a successful democracy?

I, for once, am speechless.

Comments

[Dad]

What is so shocking is that someone as bright, able and well intentioned as Obama (hugely respected around the world) should be treated like this. There's deep populist anger in the US resulting from unemployment, the banking crisis and perhaps a feeling that world leadership is slipping slowly towards Asia. It's being made worse by some near paranoid presentations made on Murdoch's Fox news and some potty arguments being made by Republican politicians eg:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/bachmann-100-of-our-economy-was-private-before-september-2008.php
Maybe the only remedies (apart from better education) is a passage of time, resumption in economic growth, and convincing actions by Obama on unemployment and better financial regulation?

But I think sensible people in the rest of the world also need to make clear that the US is extremely lucky to have Obama? There are not many like him!

[Dad]

What might become a noteworthy blog entry on the present state of some in the Republican Party by someone left - not quite - speechless!

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/a/m/americandad/2010/03/an-open-letter-to-conservative.php?ref=mp

[Ro]

Ha, that is brilliant!! Thanks Dad

[Ro]

Now what about if we could ban all games that involve killing and replace them with 'Games for change'?!
http://gamesforchange.org/

Perhaps via these kinds of games, a generation of people could be trained to:
a. think independently & strategically
b. solve problems
c. consider the future impact before they make choices that are likely to create new problems?!