ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured commentary from The Index-Journal, the editorial board explains what is truly scary about the video of chanting children for Barack Obama in America.
Chants for children: What’s the message?
Anyone around Greenwood old enough to remember can vividly recall images of the children of Nazi Germany lined up to collectively chant the praises of dictator Adolf Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s. It was the fascists’ way to indoctrinate the German youth in the fanaticism of the times.
That memory is eerily evoked in 2009 by televised images of school children in a couple of places in this country, all lined up to chant slogans that are, to critics, questionable. Regardless of the purpose of these chants, critics see them as contrary to the mission of the classroom. They argue they are not very subtle ways of another kind of indoctrination.
Before someone says that disagreeing with this kind of participation by children is racist, consider that the children involved are of many races and ethnic backgrounds. Furthermore, it’s arguable that it can be interpreted as praise for policies and politics that have nothing to do with race.
Should children be participating in such herd-like exercises that some see as propaganda? For many, that’s what these situations imply.
As many South Carolinians know, it is said in Proverbs, “Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Hitler, a certified madman, knew that. Others have emulated his methods. Should we?
