"P.S. I know you're doing your best."

8-year-old Grant reaches out to President Obama:

The use of children in politics — if you find it persuasive, you'd better sharpen up.

Drudge is doing propaganda here:



But it's very heavy-handed propaganda deployed to critique propaganda. You won't slip into falling for Drudge's propaganda, because it's so obvious. It's ridiculous to equate Obama to Hitler and Stalin, but Obama is using a form of propaganda that should be considered not merely ridiculous but repulsive. For us today to see Hitler and Stalin using children is to easily perceive the absurdity of promoting a political agenda juxtaposing it to a lovely, innocent child.

Who falls for that? No one should! The implicit argument the political leader makes, in all 3 of these pictures, is: I'm making the country good for the sake of the children. The child can't vouch for the policies. The child hasn't competently requested anything. The child is merely a prop representing goodness, innocence, and the future.

I've had a "using children in politics" tag for a while. I've made it part of my work here on the blog to notice this phenomenon, to help you see it, and to build widespread resistance to it. Remember the "children of the future" blaming us? The children taught to chant "Hey hey, ho ho, Scott Walker has got to go"? The children delighted by the "Voter Report Card"?

Drudge links to a collection of "Tyrants Who Have Used Children as Props." It's not hard to dig up these things. All politicians pose with children.



Baby-kissing is a campaign cliché.



It's a way of saying: I'm a real person. I'm normal and empathetic.

No reason to condemn that. It's too late to reject the kind of old-fashioned political kitsch that goes in the same category as eating regional food. You know, what Bob Dylan was singing about in "I Shall Be Free":

Now, the man on the stand he wants my vote
He’s a-runnin’ for office on the ballot note
He’s out there preachin’ in front of the steeple
Tellin’ me he loves all kinds-a people
(He’s eatin’ bagels
He’s eatin’ pizza
He’s eatin’ chitlins
He’s eatin’ bullshit!)

Don't you eat the bullshit!

AFL-CIO organization sends insultingly infantilizing "report card."

Look. They expect us to identify with these "cute" children:


(Enlarge.)

We're not children. We don't like to be spoken to as if we are children. And we don't like the use of children in politics. And the photographer did a particularly bad job at cute-ifying those children, whose expression has nothing to do with the way kids feel about 1. report cars and 2. whether adults are voting.

At least the organization refrained from naming and shaming the neighbors, which is what some other groups do.



You can't tell from the return address what politics underlie this mailing, but it's easy enough to find it in Wikipedia:

Working America is an allied organization of the AFL-CIO which works to build alliances among non-union working people. Working America is a nonpartisan, non-profit organization which provides workers who are not union members input into the policies, goals, and legislative efforts of the AFL-CIO.

I'm sure they chose Meade as a recipient based on our zip code.

"We're the children of the future/American through and through/But something happened to our country/And we're kinda blaming you."

I find the enunciation a bit difficult here. Who are they blaming?



I had to read the lyrics — here — to figure out that they were blaming conservatives. As I listened to the song — a reader referred me to it — I thought they were complaining about how liberals like Barack Obama had sold out their future. Why didn't I immediately recognize the creepy use of musical children from the last election? I mean this:



I don't know! I guess I thought the other side might do some parody.

2 teachers and a busload of high school students vote — using early in-person absentee balloting — in the Walker recall election.

"A witness at the Milwaukee Municipal Building on Friday reported seeing about 30 students from Pulaski High School arrived at the polls around 10 am. About 10 or 11 of them used their class schedules to vote."

However, according to the Milwaukee Elections Commission and the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, voters do not need to provide proof of age in order to register. All they have to do is check off a box on the registration form certifying that they are a qualified elector, a U.S. citizen and at least 18 years old by the time they vote.

"The whole system relies on the honestly and integrity of the individual," Sue Edmond, Milwaukee's Election Commission director, told the MacIver News Service. "If we find after the election that they lied, they could be charged with a felony."

The new voter ID law is not currently being enforced (because of the judgment of 2 Dane County judges). Interestingly, the new Marquette Law School poll, surveying likely voters in the recall election found that "61% percent favored requiring a government-issued photo id to vote, while 37 percent opposed that." People really do worry about voter fraud. Given the polls that show Walker leading — the Marquette poll has him 7 points ahead — if Barrett wins, people should be suspicious.

Here's Reince Priebus on the subject:

"I'm always concerned about voter fraud, you know, being from Kenosha, and quite frankly having lived through seeing some of it happen," Reince Priebus said. "Certainly in Milwaukee we have seen some of it, and I think it's been documented. Any notion that's not the case, it certainly is in Wisconsin. I'm always concerned about it, which is why I think we need to do a point or two better than where we think we need to be, to overcome it."...

Lester Pines, an attorney involved in a separate legal challenge to the voter ID law, also denounced Priebus' comments, saying they were baseless.

"His statement that Republicans need to outperform Democrats by one to two percent to account for vote fraud is an absolute, total, 100% lie," Pines said. "It is a fantasy. And Reince Priebus and his ilk are saying this and they're saying it over and over and over because they're using the well-known propaganda tool called 'the big lie.' If you say it enough times, people will believe it. There's no other way to characterize this except that Reince Priebus is a liar."

"The Big Lie" is indeed a well-known propaganda tool, but it is not simply something that's repeated a lot. "The Big Lie" refers to "colossal untruths" of the sort that ordinary people don't even think of telling, which they don't suspect because "they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously." I'm quoting Mein Kampf there. It's Adolph Hitler's term. Know it. Use it, but know what you're saying when you use it and only use it when you mean it, Mr. Pines. Don't make casual, vague allusions to Hitler. It's not right.

"Laws do not allow teachers to use children for partisan political advocacy, but that has not been the case, particularly in Wisconsin."

"Elementary school children have been forced to take part in anti-Scott Walker activities, even those young enough to not have any real grasp of the actual political issues facing the world. Big Labor has made the classroom much more political than it should be."

A billboard in Madison.

"Trayvon Martin was not innocent. He was guilty of being black in presumably restricted public space."

Writes Melissa Harris-Perry in The Nation:

For decades, Jim Crow laws made this crime statutory. They codified the spaces into which black bodies could not pass without encountering legal punishment. They made public blackness a punishable offense. The 1964 Civil Rights Act removed the legal barriers but not the social sanctions and potentially violent consequences of this “crime.” George Zimmerman’s slaying of Trayvon Martin — and the subsequent campaign to smear Martin — is the latest and most jarring reminder that it is often impossible for a black body to be innocent.

This is the left-wing presentation of the case. All I want to talk about here is the photograph The Nation has used to illustrate this item. We see a 3-year-old child, a boy who happens to be black. He's been dressed in a black hoodie — the item of clothing Martin was wearing when he died — and given a sign to hold. The sign has a picture of a bag of Skittles — the candy the 17-year-old Martin had in his possession when he was shot — and the words Justice 4 Trayvon Martin. The child's eyes are downcast. He looks terribly sad.

But he can't possibly be sad about racism in American, injustice, or the death of Trayvon Martin. He's 3 years old!

He's probably sad because he's been dragged to a protest and made to stand around, holding a sign, at knee level to a lot of adults who are angry about something he can't understand. Who knows the ways in which a 3-year-old absorbs the emotions of the adults who surround him? Does he even know he's black, and if he does, does that have meaning for him? What meaning is he learning — that he's guilty of being black?

One year ago at the Wisconsin protests: "Shame, shame, shame... Where is the shame?"

"Is it in wearing a gray hoodie under a tailored blazer, a little black derby hat, and a smelled-a-fart expression while carrying a pre-printed 'SHAME' sign when the guy marching after you is wearing a windbreaker and carrying a handmade 'TAX the RICH' sign?"

Is it in carrying a 3D representation of the governor's bare ass while being followed by a blanketed-up old woman in a wheelchair against whom is propped a gigantic "SHAME" sign?

Is it in wheeling around an old woman against whom is propped a gigantic "SHAME" sign and sticking mylar pinwheels into her blankets?

Is it in marching — while holding, instead of sign, a take-out coffee — while a woman holds up a "SHAME!" sign and you (apparently) supervise a child who is bearing a handmade "InaPPropriate Boob" sign which depicts (presumably) Scott Walker being directed toward a blazing fire.

Where is the shame? Is it in my photography and my questions? Should I be ashamed to see alternate meanings in the "SHAME" signs the Wisconsin protesters display proudly?

One year ago today at the Wisconsin protests: Teachers bring little children to the Capitol to chant.

"What will you do if they learn the lesson you're teaching them, to denounce legitimate authority when it crosses your heartfelt interests?"

I wrote that quote (to go with a bit of video that caused quite a stir... even got picked up by Fox News).

This quote is by someone else — one "Mrs. Slob, RN" — and appears on a sign: "Dear Scott Walker, Go back to college & take a Civics class. The only brain in your pants, is your Head Up Your Ass! Sincerely, Mrs. Slob, RN."

The guest book at the Capitol includes: "Jesus Christ/I am a Democrat."

A year ago today at the Wisconsin protests, things had drifted from the Walker budget to more generic left-wing causes.

It was no longer apparent that the protesters were mostly Wisconsin school teachers. There were more UW students and teaching assistants.

"The crowd was a bit thinner," inside the Capitol. "Lots of drumming." The sound of vuvuzela. Outside, there are some marchers. It's a bit wan. It's a Monday.

The teachers prepare to go back to school, and there are intimations that the schoolkids will be drawn into the controversy. "I  can't believe people who are fighting to preserve their job benefits would even think to appropriate the children this way. It's mind boggling."

Wisconsin protesters disrupt a Special Olympics ceremony!

In front of the Capitol today, protesters dressed as zombies stood between Governor Scott Walker and the group of Special Olympics participants he was honoring.

Quite aside from the unbelievable rudeness, how can the protesters be so blind about their own public relations?

ADDED: Here's a comment at the Walkerville Facebook page:

I don't know about anyone else but Im alright with this. Walker's actions affect many of these people more than me. They have every right to know what is going on in the state; most of them probably already do. Honestly I find the fact tht he was addressing this group offensive. It's like when he goes and visits a school. What a hypocritical liar.

Shame, shame, shame. Where is the shame?

Is it in wearing a gray hoodie under a tailored blazer, a little black derby hat, and a smelled-a-fart expression while carrying a pre-printed "SHAME" sign when the guy marching after you is wearing a windbreaker and carrying a handmade "TAX the RICH" sign?



Is it in carrying a 3D representation of the governor's bare ass while being followed by a blanketed-up old woman in a wheelchair against whom is propped a gigantic "SHAME" sign?



Is it in wheeling around an old woman against whom is propped a gigantic "SHAME" sign and sticking mylar pinwheels into her blankets?



Is it in marching — while holding, instead of sign, a take-out coffee — while a woman holds up a "SHAME!" sign and you (apparently) supervise a child who is bearing a handmade "InaPPropriate Boob" sign which depicts (presumably) Scott Walker being directed toward a blazing fire.



Where is the shame? Is it in my photography and my questions? Should I be ashamed to see alternate meanings in the "SHAME" signs the Wisconsin protesters display proudly?

Do you really want to use rote chanting to train kids to protest against authority?

Hey, teachers!



Aren't you forgetting a thing or 2? You've got them chanting "Hey hey, ho ho, Scott Walker has got to go" — but what do they know about Scott Walker? That he's done something the teachers don't like. So, maybe some day, when you do something they don't like, some kid might start "Hey hey, ho ho, [TEACHER'S NAME] has got to go." Today, you're pleased to teach them "The children, united, will never be divided." I'm picturing them repurposing that chant back in the classroom.

What will you do if they learn the lesson you're teaching them, to denounce legitimate authority when it crosses your heartfelt interests?

Whose school? OUR SCHOOL! Whose school? OUR SCHOOL!

ADDED: This video was taken by Meade and me at the Wisconsin Capitol today around noon.

Madison schools will open again on Tuesday — and Jesse Jackson will be there at East High School.

Ridiculous.

Just before classes start at East High School, Jackson plans to march from the corner of First Street and East Mifflin Street to the East parking lot for a rally....

"We could have done a big rally in the gym, but we've got to get kids in the classroom," [principal Mary Kelley said]....

But district policy says teachers can't use their positions to "promote candidates or parties or activities," including protests. [Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad] said principals will determine to what degree teachers will be allowed to discuss the matter in the classroom.

How about following the policy? Seriously. I don't get it. You have a policy. Do the rules apply or don't they? You'd better set the example you expect the kids to follow. You don't accept their explanations for why the rules don't apply to them.

Peggy Coyne, a Black Hawk Middle School reading specialist and president-elect of Madison Teachers Inc., said she plans to ask students to write journal entries Tuesday about what they did while classes were canceled the last four days.

Coyne said teachers might also incorporate recent events into lessons about Wisconsin labor history. Some elementary school teachers have been told not to discuss the political events with younger children, she added.

Ridiculous! Outrageous... and kind of intimidating. What grade does a kid get if he says he demonstrated in favor of Scott Walker? Or if he says he stayed home and played video games? If this isn't deliberate spying on the students and their families it will still feel like it to many students.

"If (teachers are) going to be speaking about the rally and the protest, it really needs to be a planned lesson and it really needs to look at both sides," [Don Johnson, superintendent of the Middleton-Cross Plains School District, said].

Look, the teachers should leave the children out of their political struggle. They've already deprived them of nearly a week of the teaching they signed on to deliver. The students should receive, immediately, substantive educational lessons of the completely normal kind. Leave the politics, indoctrination, ideology, and political discipline out of the classroom. Children are required to attend school. The teachers who hold these young bodies and minds captive owe them pure, rich education. It's a disgusting violation of trust to do anything else.

I can't believe people who are fighting to preserve their job benefits would even think to appropriate the children this way. It's mind boggling.

ADDED: Link fixed.