Friday, November 02, 2007

NIckNews Is Brainwashing Your Kids

Army Wife Toddler Mom has the scoop on the Nick News show designed to teach your children how to protest and spit on your values.

The show, hosted by Linda Ellerbee, contained four segments, each about children displaying that great liberal art of protesting.

In one segment, the children protest a standardized test required for high school graduation. "I can pass the test," says one girl earnestly, "but many others can't. It's not fair they can't graduate." I'm surprised no one pointed out to her that if students can't pass tests focusing on basic skills, they probably shouldn't be getting a diploma anyway. Unless, of course, the diploma isn't worth the paper its written on.

The third segment is about a boy protesting elephants in circuses. He complains vociferously about the abuse elephants face while being trained to stand on their hind legs, lift their trunks, etc. "If more people knew how the elephants were treated, they wouldn't want to support the circus," he said, looking into the camera with big doe eyes. Um, no. They might request more humane treatment of the elephants, but most people love looking at elephants at the zoo and the circus. That's why they pay to see them.

The most shocking segments, though, are the second and fourth in the show. In the second segment, a boy from Berkeley (where else?) is part of The World Can't Wait, a communist group from the old school, which talks about violent overthrow of the "bourgeois state." The boy dresses up in standard protester garb--orange jumpsuit with black hood--then proceeds to lecture adults on how American soldiers are "torturing people" and that we should "impeach Bush." If I saw this pint-sized protester, I'd tell him he'd be better off reading some history (he could start with Paul Tibbets) to understand what actual torture is and why he's being a brat to spout off about impeaching the president.

The fourth segment was about an Atlanta girl who created an anti-America website, complete with video of maimed or dead children with Jesus Loves Me playing in the background. "I like to go on the web and find images of children to put on my site," she said blithely. I kept waiting for the "reporter" to ask her if she knew what "propaganda" meant, as in "our enemies love to use children as human shields and propaganda."

Fortunately, this show airs at a time my children wouldn't be watching it, but it doesn't make me happy about Nickelodeon, a staple of children's entertainment. My question for Nickelodeon is this: aren't there any children protesting for conservative causes? It might seem a bit more balanced if you bothered having segments that showed students, say, protesting teachers bashing our soldiers, along with the anti-circus segment. Just sayin'.