So, a friend who forwarded me an e-mail entitled "letter from a gutsy teacher" which had been sent to him. In it, there is a letter full of hatred and fiction with a picture of a fourth grade teacher from Missouri holding up her middle finger. Sending such tripe with a photo is indicative of the judgement implicit in the rest of the letter. Since my pal sends me these mostly to see my response, and I hate to disappoint, I felt compelled to address the lies in the letter. I won't post the letter, since it is poorly written and semi literate in composition, but I will attach below my response, which I sent to the originator (not my buddy, who just sends me these to spin me up, lol))
Regarding the e-mail “Letter from a gutsy teacher…”
I agree with only one part of this
scurrilous document. It IS “gutsy” to pose as a knowledgeable person and be so
wrong! If you read all she has to say, read this, too.
I just reread this load of horse
dung. Here is a systematic although not necessarily
ordered, refutation of essentially the whole thing. To start: John Adams was
the first President who told Muslims in print that the US was "not a
Christian nation." As a non theocratic state, which we are, that statement is categorically
correct, as much as the Robertsons, Grahams and Bachmanns might wish it
otherwise. She calls out others for not knowing details of which she is obviously ignorant.
She is beside herself because President Obama bowed when introduced to the Saudi King. Her point, if any, is that the US President represents us and should bow to no one, since his job doesn't concern Europe or the rest of the world. In truth, Nixon, Eisenhower, Bush 41, and Kennedy all were photographed bowing to foreign heads of state, Eisenhower to the Pope and G.H.W. Bush to the Emperor of Japan at the funeral of Hirohito who led Japan into war against The US!
Then in stunning and illogical change of direction, she then asks if the President has ever heard of the Marshall Plan, but makes no point relative to the question. The Marshall Plan, while generous, was
politically motivated as an anti-Communist tactic to weaken Soviet interests in
Western Europe. President Obama wasn't
the only President who was careful not to offend the Germans, that was actually
Reagan, who went to a German war dead cemetery. I think the surveillance of the German Prime
Minister's phone actually pissed them off. President Obama, has not, to any
degree exceeding that of his 4 predecessors, "gone around the world
apologizing...... " he has just
been less offensive than Bush Sr, in that he didn't puke on anyone. This twit,
obviously still believes that if you tell the big lie, that the President is
Muslim (He isn’t!) that it will become true (it won't). Would she rather have him shout to the Saudis and
Jordanians "We hate you raghead motherf*****s?" If so, she has absolutely no grasp of geopolitics.
The real rub here is that both Bushes had and
have far stronger ties to the Saudis and their Wahabi state than any other
president ever. This twit then insults the entire Congress as being less
intelligent than she and certainly not all members are really bright, but
anyone who edited the Harvard Law review or completed an Ivy League education cum laude
as did the current President, is at least functionally literate. Did she insult
the intelligence of Bush 43 - a C
student legacy at Yale? - I doubt it.
She whines about Congressional
"pay raises." Here are the
facts (a concept foreign to this woman): Since 1992, congressional pay has not kept up
with inflation. To keep up, pay would have to be closer to $219,000 rather than
$179,000. By law, Congress obtains an annual automatic pay adjustment,
equivalent to the prior year's average private sector wage change. However, the
raise can't be a higher percentage than for other federal employees. A
Congressional pay raise also cannot go into effect until after the following congressional
election. As someone who also has not been enchanted with Congressional performance,
I feel it more useful to hold one’s elected representative’s feet to the fire,
rather than slander the whole body. Her “shotgun” approach is right out of the Limbaugh/Beck
playbook .
She moves on to complain about
teacher pay. If this teacher took a 5%
pay cut last year as she claims, she should blame either: a) her state, if that's where funding levels
are decided or b) her school district
whichever controls teacher compensation. The federal government has zero to do
with setting teacher compensation (except maybe in US foreign schools and DC) Again this woman apparently has no grasp of
the unreality of her claims.
Back to WWI and II, which this
harpie says were fought out of our concern for the peoples of Europe. In truth,
we only declared war on Germany after
they declared war on us after we declared war on Japan. Even though FDR
strongly felt we should help Britain as early as 1940, folks in the heartland
(like the misguided soul who authored
this letter) basically had a different attitude, which roughly distilled down
to “Not our problem” , based on memories of the horrors of WWI and a strong
sense of isolationism. Speaking of WWI, it took three years and the fear that
if the Allies lost the war the US couldn't recoup the billions American
financiers had loaned them, to get Wilson able to ask for a declaration of war.
Apparently Messers Dodd and Frank
have offended her as well, she never says why. While I'm not fond of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,
the White House neither created nor runs neither one of those, so I'm not sure
why she's pissed at the President about them.
Finally, nothing the President has
ever done or said had indicated his
ethic system to be other than Christian, but if any piece of legislation passed
in the last 40 years has Christian concern for others behind it, it is the Affordable
care Act! As someone who actually taught both the
Declaration and the Constitution in a college level course, it is noteworthy
that the words “Christian” and "Jesus" are absent in both, so, so much for the "Christian" claim.
Adams, a Deist, but likely not much of a Christian, cajoled Jefferson, another
Deist and even less a Christian, to write the Declaration. I don't know what
the "teacher" thinks the Declaration is; perhaps like Ms Palin, she
has some vague sense that it is a governing document (it isn't). In modern
terms it might be called "Why we're pissed at Parliament and blaming the
King instead" and subtitled "leave us the hell alone so we can make
more money" James Madison (author of
much of the Constitution) and Alexander Hamilton ( author of "The
Federalist, along with Madison and John Jay) were little more devout. In fact,
Madison and Jefferson's distaste for organized religion was why they mandated
that the University of Virginia would have no chaplains, since M and J decided that
if the students needed their souls tended, they could get it done in
Charlottesville off campus.
Like so much of the tripe produced
by the Tea Party and their ignorant ilk, this is couched in terms attempting to
make the reader believe the writer actually has something to say, and she does.
Unfortunately, it reveals the author's gross ignorance as relates to factual
matters, and worse yet, reveals the bigotry of the author as regards her
willingness to make diametrically untrue statements about the President. As a Missourian, she comes from a state with a
less than pristine record on the subject of race relations anyway (read about the
St. Louis riots of 1917 if you are a real student). I would hate for a fourth
grader of mine to be a victim of this teacher in the classroom. When I was
teaching, (20 years following 26 in the Navy) most of my students had little
idea regarding my political affiliations; I doubt the same is true in this case.
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