Three days ago, Glenn Beck ran the following story about a video that is currently being shown in schools across the country (see embeds below). The video is straight up liberal propaganda. For instance, the narrator uses a tank to symbolize our government, lies about how much of our tax dollars are going to the military, implies that capitalism is evil, lies about how much of our original forests are left, tells the children watching that, “We douse our pillows in neurotoxins”, and then states the following doozy—

“It’s the government’s job to watch out for us…to take care us us. That’s their job.”

Now, I know what you all are asking. Who made this video? Well, the narrator of the video is a woman by the name of Annie Leonard who is a former Greenpeace employee. However, as Glenn Beck stated above, this video is made by an organization called the Tides Foundation which is headed by a liberal activist named Drummond Pike. This organization is funded by George Soros and launders money from liberal donors to other liberal recipients in order to avoid a paper trail. Oh, and Wade Rathke is the Board Chairman of the Tides Foundation. Yeah, that Wade Rathke—the founder and chief of ACORN. By the way, that’s the same ACORN that Barack Obama’s campaign paid over $800,000 to and that Barack Obama worked for as a community organizer—and Obama represented them as their attorney in a 1995 motor voter case. And, finally, that’s also the same ACORN that, until recently, was scheduled to take part in the 2010 US Census and was scheduled to receive possibly up to eight billion dollars in the stimulus bill, and has received over fifty-three million dollars in federal funds over the years.

OK—now, I realize that liberals will reply to all of this information with the following retort—“Yes, this may all be true, but we can play this six degrees of Kevin Bacon game with any of the past presidents—all politicians have some sketchy friends.” To which I would reply, yes, most past presidents have had some sketchy friends (and I think that Beck can sometimes go too far with his conspiracy theories). However, no past president that I’m aware of has ever had any of their degenerate friends disperse propagandistic videos throughout the tax-payer funded public schools, have they?

However folks—this story about the above videos circulating in the schools is a big deal for several additional reasons (besides the obvious ones that I just laid out), the first of which is the Skool-Aid (H/T to our own $peciallist for the creative name)—i.e., the Obama Administration’s recent foray into public education. Our own Steve Foley and Caleb Howe have both reported extensively on this subject, and Michelle Malkin has as well.

Now, the typical New York Times reader would think that people who objected to Barack Obama speaking to school children are “RAAACISTS!” who had a problem with Obama telling their kids to “study hard and stay in school”—when, in fact, they were concerned about the Obama Administration’s ridiculously partisan lesson plan (which even Camille Paglia referred to as “imbecilic support materials”). Furthermore, he or she would not know that congressional Democrats investigated and held hearings when George H.W. Bush spoke to school children and that The Washington Post ran a scathing front page article about George H. W. Bush speaking to school children (and George H.W. Bush didn’t have the ridiculous “lesson Plan” that the Obama Administration had either). Below, Michelle Malkin walks us through some of the details of the Skool-Aid when she writes the following—-

Education Secretary Arne Duncan dispatched letters to principals nationwide boasting that “This is the first time an American president has spoken directly to the nation’s school children about persisting and succeeding in school.” But the goal is not merely morale-boosting. According to White House event-related guides developed by the U.S. Department of Education’s Teaching Fellows, grade-school students will be told to “listen to the speech” and “could think about the following:”

*What is the President trying to tell me?

*What is the President asking me to do?

*What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?

• Students can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?

After the speech, teachers will ask students:

*What do you think the President wants us to do?

*Does the speech make you want to do anything?

*Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?

Now, in a vacuum, the Skool-Aid wouldn’t look all that bad—well I take that back. It wouldn’t look great, but it wouldn’t have been ghastly either. However, let’s not forget that the Obama Administration, and their sycophants in the MSM, actively bragged about Barack Obama’s youth outreach program. In fact, in a 2007 WSJ article, Elizabeth Holmes wrote the following about the Obama campaign’s youth outreach program (H/T Sourcewatch)—-

“Many of you can caucus in Iowa,” Mr. Obama told scores of high-school students, via conference call, from around [Iowa in September 2007] for the kickoff of the weekly ‘BarackStar’ nights held for teens at the campaign’s 31 field offices. ‘I hope you realize how much power you have, potentially, to change the world.’”

The Obama campaign is also actively cultivating teachers, along with high-school principals, using them for entree to the youngest voters. Sometimes Obama aides try to hunt the adults down at home, begging for classroom time.”

Obama, “driven both by necessity, and his particular appeal … has a proverbial seat at the cool kids’ lunch table, with his appearance on the cover of Vibe and having met with the likes of rapper Ludacris. …

“So Rachel Haltom-Irwin, the campaign’s 25-year-old Iowa Youth Vote director, attends many of Sen. Obama’s appearances, building the campaign’s email database. At a stop in the tiny town of Guthrie Center, she approached the student band and passed around a sign-up clipboard.

“Under the heading of ‘BarackStars,’ the field offices hold weekly gatherings tailored toward teens and hand out information packets to be distributed back at school. …

“In Storm Lake, a picturesque town in northwestern Iowa, Sen. Obama’s team invited high-school teachers to bring students to a midweek event. The district accepted the invitation and provided a bus to transport 60 students. … ”

Teachers Elise Walz and Jenna Broghamer of West Lake High School in Iowa City “recently hopped one of many campaign-hired school buses to the Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola — an annual event sponsored by the state’s veteran Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin. In presidential campaign season, the event draws the top Democratic contenders.”

Furthermore, during the Democratic primary, several Democratic senators and high level Democratic politicians actively bragged about how their teenage children browbeat them into supporting Obama (in fact, I remember Claire McCaskill admitting on MSNBC that her seventeen year old daughter told her that she was a “slug” if she didn’t support Obama). At the time, The Washington Post wrote the following about this matter—

The youth movement behind Obama isn’t just bringing 18-year-olds to the polls — it’s also providing cover for their parents.

When Claire McCaskill, the Missouri senator, endorsed Obama earlier this month, she said it was the urging of her 18-year-old daughter that got her over the hump. When Caroline Kennedy announced her endorsement on Sunday, she also invoked her children as a reason: “I have spent the past five years working in the New York City public schools and have three teenage children of my own,” she wrote in her New York Times op-ed. “As parents, we have a responsibility to help our children to believe in themselves and in their power to shape their future. Senator Obama is inspiring my children, my parents’ grandchildren, with that sense of possibility.”

Tuesday came Kathleen Sebelius, the governor of Kansas, who offered the most detailed attribution of all when she endorsed Obama during a visit to his grandfather’s hometown of El Dorado, Kansas — and which she then repeated during a big rally in Kansas City, Mo. She said that her two sons had been after her for a long time to endorse Obama, but for different reasons. Her elder, in law school, likes Obama for his message, “because he could bring people together”; her younger one likes Obama because he likes Michelle Obama. “He says that anyone who can get Michelle to marry him has to have something going for him.”

And finally, The AP recently wrote about how a political science professor from LaSalle University, named Mary Ellen Balchunis, thought that Obama should re-mobilize his youth support in order to pass his healthcare bill. The AP wrote the following about Balchunis’ thoughts with regard to young people below—-

Balchunis thinks the president could boost youth support on these and other issues — and get them influencing their parents, as they did in the election — if he mobilized and spoke directly to them, the way he did during the campaign. He could for instance, make use of the well-organized student groups that campaigned for him to push the issues of the day.

If he doesn’t, Balchunis thinks that also could have negative ramifications for Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections, because those young voters will lose interest and won’t bother to show up at the polls. That’s what happened, she says, after her own young generation was initially excited about Bill Clinton when he was first elected president in 1992. Then, just two years later, Democrats lost control of Congress.

So anyway, my point is that it’s ridiculously unfair for the Obama campaign to actively recruit high school students and bus them in for caucuses, for Democratic bigwigs to wax ecstatic about how their children nagged them into voting for Obama, and for political science professors to imply that Obama could get his mojo back if he started recruiting high school and college kids again (many kids in high school will be in college in 2012)—but then, for those same liberals to turn around an yell “Raaacist!” when parents are upset about their children having to write an essay, after the President’s speech, about what they and their parents can do to help President Obama. (Translation—“Kiddies, you can vote for me when you turn eighteen, and be sure to nag your poor parents into submission until then”.)

Moreover, the above propaganda video circulating through the schools that Glenn Beck recently played on his show further compounds people’s fear that the public schools are becoming a hotbed of liberal indoctrination for their kids—especially when teachers are making the children that they teach draw pro-Obama campaign art and sing in propaganda videos that would make Hugo Chavez proud (H/T Hot Air—see embed below).

Now, a second reason why the video (involving liberal propaganda in the schools) that Beck recently played on his show is a big deal is because of the recent scandal involving The National Endowment for the Arts. Glenn Beck also covered the NEA scandal in depth and I wrote about it in more detail in a diary here. The NEA scandal initially involved Yosi Sargent, the director of communications for the NEA, making a conference call to various artists encouraging them to participate in propaganda for the Obama Administration (the NEA is a tax-payer funded entity). Patrick Courrielche, a blogger for BigHollywood.com., told Beck that the NEA had sent out mass emails to many artists and bloggers, and that he had participated in a conference call with the NEA (that he recorded and that Beck played on his show) in which Yosi Sargent of the NEA said the following (see embed below)—

“We are just now learning how to really bring this community together to speak with the government. What that looks like legally.”

And, Mr. Sergant also said this little gem—

“Take photos. Take video. Post it on your blogs. Get the word out. Like I said, this is a community that knows how to make a stink. Do it.”

OK—now given the fact that the NEA is an independent agency of the United States federal government (independent being the operative word here), the NEA shouldn’t be bringing ANYONE together to “speak with the government”. In the words of George Will, “I don’t know how many laws that breaks”.

However, this was not the end of th NEA scandal. Patrick Courrielche has now reported that Buffy Wicks, from the White House Office of Public Engagement, was the one who actually hosted the conference call, and that Yosi Sargent gave his little pep talk after she spoke. Mr. Courrielche recorded Ms. Wicks saying the following—

” I just first of all want to thank everyone for being on the call and just a deep deep appreciation for all the work you all put into the campaign for the 2+ years we all worked together.” “We won.” “I’m actually in the White House and working towards furthering this agenda, this very aggressive agenda.” “We’re going to come at you with some specific asks here.” “I hope you guys are ready.”

And then, Glenn Beck ran the story about the updated NEA scandal where he explained that Buffy Wicks used to be a union astroturfer who funneled hundreds and thousands of dollars to ACORN (see embed below).

Furthermore, Beck also added that Ms. Wicks is the lead White House official on Serve.Gov (an organization that is supposed to “encourage” volunteer work, though The Washington Times easily dispels that myth), which made that creepy “I Pledge” video (see embed below).

Oh, and now, Yosi Sargent has had to resign from the NEA, but Buffy Wicks still has her job of course.

Now you ask, how does the NEA scandal tie into the Skool-Aid and the recent school propaganda videos (that I embedded at the top of this blog)? Simple. All three are prime examples of how the Obama Administration, and far-left liberals in general, don’t really mind using propaganda and indoctrination—whether in the schools or using tax-payer funded organizations like the NEA—to push their agenda. Simply put, this is the same song, third verse.

And finally, there is one more reason why this propaganda video dispersed throughout the schools (along with the Skool-Aid and the NEA scandal) is a big deal. Several days ago, Glenn Beck did a story about Mark Lloyd, Barack Obama’s chief diversity czar for the FCC (I can’t quite figure out why the FCC needs a diversity czar). In the video that I’m about to show you, Mr. Lloyd is heard openly praising Hugo Chavez (but then again, Sean Penn routinely praises Hugo Chavez so this is really nothing new for the far-left), stating The Fairness Doctrine doesn’t go far enough (that’s the bill that Nancy Pelosi wants to pass in order to curtail the conservative media), and finally, Mr. Lloyd states that, “We’re in a position to say who is going to step down so that someone else will get power”. Seriously, between Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers, Father Pfleger, Van Jones, and now, Mark Lloyd, has Obama ever met a nutter that he doesn’t like? But, I digress.

So, now we are singing the same song, fourth verse. In a nutshell, this song basically states that the government and its allies can engage in open propaganda and indoctrination in our public schools, manipulate our tax-payer funded institutions for political purposes (such as the NEA), while simultaneously curtailing our freedom of speech and deciding who gets hired and fired. I don’t know about you, but I think that this song sucks. I say that we stop singing it. In fact, what’s so scary about the tune that the Obama Administration, and its buddies, seem to be humming, is that when I, and honest people on both sides of the aisle read about the details, we can’t all help but exclaim, “This doesn’t happen in America! This kind of stuff only happens in other countries—like Venezuela.” Well you know what, this shouldn’t happen in America—not if we have anything to say about it. I say that it’s high time that we, the sane people of America, start making our voices heard, and start singing louder than the bozos behind the the Skool-Aid, the NEA scandal, and all of these propagandistic videos. Enough is enough. It is time to make our voices heard. Here is where I take my stand.