I scribbled notes during my trip to Nome to remind me of things to write about. Unfortunately, by the time I am getting to that, the memory is incomplete and what I was referring to is not always clear. Ah well. We press on.
There was an animation on PBSKids. The kids wanted a dog park. I am already suspicious. If your town doesn't already have a dog park, how likely is a child to think of that? I can understand them liking the idea once some adult has brought it up, because it sounds guaranteed to make doggies happy! Who could be against that? Yet this desire for a dog park sounds more like an adult idea than a child's. The only dog park I have ever been to was in a suburb of Houston, and I didn't see many children there. Since the video, though, there might be kids all over America starting to angle for dog parks now.
So, reluctantly granting that poi ------!
It just this moment occurs to me that we have a parallel with the recent gun control protests here. Astroturfed. Adult-managed. Put the kids out front. Hmmm. As I write about the dog park, I'm going to be checking the parallel.
They went to they teacher, who sent them to...
The head of Park and Rec to ask that someone build them a dog park...
Parks and Rec said it was a great idea, but they would need the go-ahead from the mayor, presumably because money, but I don't think money was mentioned...
So they went to the mayor, who went to the council, who agreed it was a great idea...
The town built the dog park and there was a little song that went with it, including the lyric. "People in the government helped make a wonderland."
Went looking. Found it. Feel worse now.
I don't think the people at PBS even see that their view of government and how things work is only one view among others. It certainly doesn't occur to them that there might be anything damaging about it. It's just the way things are. The government runs everything, here is how you get the government to do what you want.
Sorry to be depressing. But something that might cheer you up is picturing the March For Our Lives kids as really operating more at this level than the semi-adult/wise young rulers pose they have adopted.
I've seen a number of people blogging about an article, surprisingly published in the Washington Post, that analyzed the demographics of the March for Our Lives in DC. Only 10% of the participants were 18 or under. The average age of the rest was almost 50, and the majority were women. Some of the more conspiracy minded places point to use permits for the march location that had been obtained for the March date several months in advance of the Parkland shooting. Maybe not astroturf (depending on how you define it) but it appears a generic anti-Trump/feminist/Planned Parenthood protest already in the works could have been re-themed. Certainly seems the kids weren't in the drivers seat.
ReplyDeleteThe main goal of the gun-control panic of 2018, the race panic of 2014, the Women's March and anti-Trump events generally seems to be the registration of new Democratic voters.
ReplyDelete@ Jonathan - which is good strategy, so I can't fault them for that overall picture of using everything to register more voters and get 'em hopping mad. I object to the manipulative and dishonest execution of the plan.
ReplyDeleteThe speed with which press and other events were organized after the shooting testified to plans already in place. High school kids are not going to organize that fast--they don't have the connections.
ReplyDeleteI was planning to post a comparison with The Monkees, but after some research found that the band really were musicians, contrary to the scuttlebutt.
AVI, agreed.
ReplyDeleteIt's not indoctrination; it's education and inspiration. The point of the PBS Kids video isn't to rally children to go demand dog parks across the country. The point is to explain to kids how civic involvement works and that people coming together in the community to work toward a particular goal can make it happen through mechanisms of democratic government.
ReplyDeleteYou didn't really bother to think about your answer, did you? I know that what you said is the common belief among those who think that getting other people to buy them stuff is "civic involvement." You are simply reciting a cliche. You needn't patiently explain things to people as if they are stupid when they might be having ideas you aren't. It makes assumptions that should not be made.
ReplyDeleteYou apparently make the same assumptions and can't stop. It was a bad lesson to teach children. It's not about dog parks per se.